


dark noise

by raycats



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Consensual Mind Control, Death, Erotic Electrostimulation, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Memory Related, Muteness, Self-Destruction, Sexual Tension, Size Difference, Slow Burn, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 119,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raycats/pseuds/raycats
Summary: Feng Min had begun unraveling long before the Entity ever claimed her. When she first wakes up in the purgatory of the nightmare, she sees it as a challenge— a way to hit the reset button on her entire life. The other survivors don't trust her, but she doesn't need them to. She's focused only on escaping. Winning.But it's not long before she's unraveling again, disarmed by an unusual confrontation with one killer in particular. When the Doctor doesn't immediately choose to kill her, Feng Min begins to walk a dangerous path, determined to test the limits. Hers, and his.





	1. whispers

**Author's Note:**

> This is a character study more than anything else. I wanted to try to explore how a person's actual feelings and psychological state might break down in this kind of setting and how they would cope with it. But then I also wanted to write plot and self-indulgent pairings, so now I'm writing it all at once, because I can. The result is pretty cerebral. Feng Min, with her surprisingly dark backstory, seemed to be a perfect self-destructive lead to explore that idea, which is why the narrative is following her, although many of the other survivors will have prominent roles, as well. 
> 
> On names: I think there is a bit of discussion in the player base about what to call her, but since she has no established nickname or alternate name, I am choosing to write about her using her full name, Feng Min, because that is keeping in line with the name as it would be structured according to Chinese naming customs, and it is the most likely name she would use for herself.
> 
> I did do a lot of research into the existing lore, but as most of you will know, there are significant gaps. If more lore is introduced, I will revise as necessary. Same goes with characterization; there is little official character information to go off of aside from bare bones descriptions, so I've obviously taken some liberties with headcanon (especially in regards to the Doctor; his characterization is all speculation, particularly the way I've chosen to represent and explore his powers). Here are a few quick things to note about how I've interpreted the setting of the nightmare, to help with the framing of the world mechanics:
> 
> -I picture the Entity's realm as an indistinct, dreamlike place, constantly shifting, with little indication of time passing. Outside of trials, individual realms/maps are unfenced and much larger.  
> -I've given the survivors the ability to speak during trials, which has been suggested by the devs to be prohibited by the Entity. I see the lack of speaking in-game as a game mechanic more than anything else; it doesn't align well with writing fanfic. I'm sticking with that story.  
> -The survivors are able to access realms outside of trials by heading into the forest surrounding the campfire, but only at the Entity's whims. Killers mostly stick to their own realms, with little crossover, and do not really enjoy nor seek out one another's company, although there are some exceptions. Some killers are more monstrous/feral than others.  
> -The Bloodweb is a dream state the survivors can access only within their minds; it grants them the more supernatural abilities, like aura reading. Items like toolboxes, flowers etc must be scavenged.
> 
> There will be (varied) sexual content in later chapters that may warrant hiking the rating up to an E, and I'll be updating the tags as we go along. It's pretty slow burn, though, so don't hold your breath just yet. This is primarily character and plot focused; any smut that occurs will be incidental to that. On that note, although this work is obviously rated for adults, I will reiterate the point to make this very clear: I am not comfortable with minors accessing, engaging with, or reading my work. If you aren't 18 or older, do not proceed. This fic is not for you.
> 
> Chapters to be posted every 2 weeks, give or take. I'm staying a few chapters ahead progress-wise, so I'm feeling optimistic. Wow, that's a lot of words. Sorry. Nice to meet you.

Feng Min tells herself that she is not having a nightmare.  
  
Waking up in unfamiliar surroundings next to people she doesn't know is something that's been happening a lot lately, yes, but that's not the disorienting part. It's that it's never been like _this_ before.  
  
She is not having a nightmare because it feels too real. _She's_ too real, shaky fingers curling over her palms, cold sweat down her neck, that collapsing-heart feeling she'd always get just before she'd have to walk out on stage at a competition. Before she'd stopped.  
  
She is not having a nightmare because it's more likely that she's dead, and this is Hell. Her place here, she thinks, is probably earned.  
  
She is not having a nightmare because she recognizes that there are rules and boundaries to this world. Logic.  
  
She is not having a nightmare because _forever_ is not a concept that her human brain can process.  
  
The others tell her, _It's hard for everybody at first._  
  
_At first_ , against _forever_. Feng Min thinks that most people are truly naïve.

   
  


When she'd arrived, after she'd gathered her bearings and made her way towards the light she could see shining through the trees, after the strangers huddled around the campfire had cautiously approached and begun telling her the most ridiculous bullshit Feng Min had ever heard in her ridiculous bullshit life, after they had told her to _sit down for this_ , after they had attempted to explain something they called _the Entity_ , after they'd said _I don't know_ to almost every question she had asked, and after they had finally left her alone by the fire, Feng Min discovered her cell phone in her pocket.  
  
She had forgotten all about it. Now it sat in her hand, cracked glass and colorful charms and all. Completely cold atop her palm. Dead.

   
  


Feng Min immediately knows that the others don't necessarily trust her. Not the way some of them trust each other. She's observed the relief that spreads into Meg's eyes when she's called forth by the Entity alongside Claudette or Dwight. She's seen the way that Quentin and Laurie cooperate during what the other people call _trials_ , working together to keep everyone alive. Or the way that Tapp and the old guy — Bill? — seem to have this unspoken ability to play off one another's strengths, throwing the enemy off their game.  
  
They don't extend the same faith to her, but she gets why. It's not just that they've all been here longer than her; it's the _way_ Feng Min has chosen to survive. She doesn't think they really understand; she's trying to be pragmatic. The first trial she'd been in, she was so afraid that she'd frozen in place as the Wraith had come upon her. She only had to experience that feeling once before she began recalculating her strategy. After dying, _actually_ dying and then waking up again, she was forced to accept that all of it was real. _Is_ real. The fear and the pain and the dying. All of it. Worse, the _Entity_ is real, and it just _knows_ things about her. When she first woke up and found herself wearing her team uniform — something that had been collecting dust in her closet for almost a year — it felt like some kind of sick joke was being played on her.  
  
There is no allowance for compassion when it comes to survival. Early on in the trials, Feng Min identifies the most efficient way to survive: stay quiet, complete generators quickly, and look out for herself only. She comes to see how staying focused on those three things is often the difference between life and death. When she runs past an injured ally, it's not that she wants them to come to harm. She's not cruel or sadistic; it's not like she enjoys seeing someone get their guts ripped out, or that she has anything personal against any of the others. It's just that she's trying to avoid that same fate.  
  
Feng Min knows that all games are ultimately a test of the player's ability to make the right calls when needed, no matter what the cost. To step up when beckoned to. No quarter. She's died enough times on that hook already, at the same rate as any of the rest of them. She figures that it all sort of balances out at the end.  
  
Never mind, then, the fact that they don't really know her, the fact that most of them don't really seem to _want_ to. Feng Min is used to that. Especially lately, in the past that had been severed from her body and left behind in another world.  
  
There is one person — they call each other _survivors_ , like the word hasn't lost all effectiveness by now — who kind of reminds Feng Min of herself. He's got the unfocused, familiar gaze of someone who spends a lot of time inside their own head instead of in their surroundings. Jake Park usually stands around like he doesn't know what to do with his hands. When most of them choose to gather by that endless campfire (she'd stared into it for what felt like hours one time, and experienced no pain, no blindness), Jake is usually out by the forest's edge, sometimes slipping quietly into the trees.  
  
Eventually, the curiosity gets to her, and she does something unusual: she starts a conversation.  
  
"What's out there?" The sound of her own voice, so underused lately, makes her wince.  
  
Jake turns, his eyes flicking over her. If he's surprised to see her, he doesn't show it. "Whatever you find. There are no directions. Eventually, it always takes you back to the campfire."  
  
Feng Min glances into the tree line. "What do you mean?" she asks, although she has an idea. She may not be a professional any more, but she still knows video games. All the times she'd tested the limits of a game world, walked to the edge to see what would happen. Trying to see if her character would hit a wall or get flung across the map or get stuck there or—  
  
or fall into the abyss.  
  
"The trees take you to the rest of the Entity's world. Outside of trials. Eventually, they take you back. We go out there sometimes to scavenge for supplies. It doesn't matter which direction you walk." Jake's shoulders roll dispassionately.  
  
Feng Min wonders, for a moment, about walking out there, to experience it for herself. She's so tired of the fire's yellow light, its burnless heat, its endless, suspended entropy. "What about the...?"  
  
"Those monsters?" he completes for her, his voice low. "They're there, too. Dormant, usually. But they can still hurt you. We try not to disturb them."  
  
So they live here, somehow. Just like she does now. She realizes that she hasn't even thought yet about the possibility that the Entity's servants are anything more than varied ways to punish them all.  
  
"If they can still hurt us, why don't they come here to the fire?"  
  
"It's something about the campfire. We think it repels them. The one place we can feel temporarily safe in our alleged eternal punishment." Feng Min thinks he's trying to be funny at first, but when she looks up into his face, she sees no smile. He has yet to make eye contact with her.  
  
"Is that what you think is going on? We're being punished?" She crosses her arms.  
  
"We all have theories," he says. "Like we told you, we don't know a lot. And there's nobody around willing to answer our questions."  
  
"Yeah," says Feng Min, pausing. She's afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she talks too much. She doesn't think she should get to know any of these people too well.  
  
Jake says, "So... Feng Min, huh? Do you have an English name?"  
  
Before she can really stop herself, Feng Min's defensiveness kicks on. Out of the many, many things her parents had given her that she had given back, often without gratitude, her name was not one of them. "Do you have a Korean one?"  
  
"Mmm," says Jake. "Point taken."  
  
"How long have you been here?" she asks him, and before he can answer, she clarifies, "How long does it feel like you've been here?" It's a loaded question. Time here is an amorphous thing, a formless void that does not align with the rules of this dimension. Time has been discarded by the Entity, because time would steal their lives away in a moment if it could, and it can't have that.  
  
"Forever," says Jake, and he looks like he means it. "It feels like I've been here longer than I've been alive, but I'm not sure. My life... everything _before_ still feels like it happened just seconds ago. So close I could just reach out and grab it..." He trails off and makes a vague gesture. "And then it feels like it's been a thousand years, sometimes." Jake gives a sort of laugh, surprising her. It's barely a huff, just him exhaling, and she gets the sense again that he doesn't spend a lot of time talking to other people.  
  
Neither does she, for that matter. Feng Min returns to sit by the fire and await her next punishment.

  
  
 

Things happen within the nightmare without warning. Trials just _begin_ , with little warning, the fog thickening before their eyes and dissipating to reveal that it has brought them somewhere else. Feng Min can't figure out how they actually _get_ there. It goes with her altered experience of time; she's become unable to measure it in any meaningful way. The others tell her that she'll get used to it. That you could measure it if you wanted to, if you had a watch, but time doesn't really mean anything any more, not when your existence — not _life_ , that doesn't seem like the right word, it feels like a curse in her mouth now — is just a series of tortured loops.  
  
Time is nothing, Feng Min tells herself. Time is something humans made up to know when the Earth was turning. Time is a measure of mortality, a concept no longer within her grasp.  
  
She can still experience something parallel to sleep. She can close her eyes and slip away briefly from her surroundings, but she's not sure that she ever actually gets any rest; it's more like falling into a lukewarm pit of tar, laying on the surface of it, waiting to sink below the black. She asks the others if they ever feel well-rested after sleeping here; they all shake their heads _no._  
  
The due date for any chance that all of this could be a bad dream has come and gone. 

  
  
 

Feng Min is lost in a forest. _Mother's Dwelling,_ Jake called it. She'd wanted to ask where they'd gotten such a ridiculous name for it, then realized that she didn't care. She's reserving all of the emotional energy she's got for trials.  
  
She _has_ been here before. Died here before. She's not sure how many times. The forest is still a remote and alien world to her. Like all of the Entity's realms, something doesn't feel right about it. There's an unnatural energy in the air, carried by the fog. She has never spotted any animals here, aside from the Entity's crows. The trees are more still than any Feng Min has ever seen, even though a perpetual rain falls. It is a world locked in a state of nourishment, anticipating growth that will never come.  
  
The cold is starting to make her fingers numb. They're shaking slightly as Feng Min works on the generator in front of her. She keeps making mistakes; it's hard to see what she's doing with the rain running down her face and getting into her eyes. Her clothes are soaked through, and she knows she's going to really start feeling it soon. She has to keep her blood pumping.  
  
She hasn't yet heard the _thud, thud, thud_ that means _hide_ , or _run_ , and she's already got her eyes on the next point she plans to take after she finishes this generator. She tries to allow some of the tight-chest tension to drain out of her, the anxiety and barely-suppressed terror that's got her stomach churning. She'll contend one thing to the Entity: it's just as scary every fucking time she has to go through one of these trials. It never gets any less terrifying. She will never overcome the feeling of dread in her stomach at knowing she has been selected for punishment.  
  
Did she deserve to end up in this situation? Did any of them? When she'd first arrived, Feng Min had wondered if this place was a purgatory where they all awaited judgment. Or maybe this _was_ the judgment. She grants that she'd probably deserved it. Maybe she'd finally gone too far that last night on Earth (are they still on Earth? She's not sure) and died and this is Hell. But to accept her damnation would be to accept that she'd been a failure in life.  
  
Hadn't she, though?  
  
The generator lights up above her head. Feng Min can only enjoy the sight of it for a moment before she needs to be on the move. She's picking her way through the tall grass, swiping her wet hair out of her eyes, when she hears it— the telltale humming of the one the others called _the Huntress_ floating on the mist somewhere behind her.  
  
When Feng Min had first encountered the Huntress, she'd been taken off-guard by the humming. It had sounded so sweet, a sort of lullaby that beckoned you to curl up inside of it. The Huntress was a woman bigger than any Feng Min had ever seen, but the soft fabrics and the rabbit's face she wore seemed to offer comfort. She was little more than another monster, though. Just like the others.  
  
Feng Min can still remember the split-watermelon sound her own skull made when she'd caught a hatchet in the back of her head the last time she had been to the forest. She'd heard the wet crack happening right between her ears.  
  
Feng Min bolts, picking a track through the trees that puts one of the cabins into view. She lurches herself over a window. Her tights snag on the frame and tear before she bounds up the planks leading to the sodden, rotting upper half, where she huddles in a corner, shivering. Not from the rain. The cover up here isn't good. The cabin is barely standing to begin with.  
  
The heartbeats grow louder. Feng Min trains her eyes on the one entrance she can see from her position. She's straining her ears for the sound of footsteps, but she's having trouble placing them with all the rain falling outside.  
  
When the pulse suddenly changes direction and fades away, she feels a lightheaded, dizzy relief. She's been feeling like that a lot more often the more trials she experiences. As she starts to get a feel of the tasks before her, the right ways to move, to run, to hide, she's begun to feel something familiar: the rush of adrenaline.  
  
Feng Min has sought it all her life. She's always had something to prove to someone, and if she hadn't, she'd find something. The competitiveness had merely come as a side effect of her need to establish herself as someone worthy of respect. But, here, _here_... she allows herself to think that maybe it could be a strength, not a weakness that had cleaved her from her family and from everything she'd ever worked for.  
  
Feng Min cocks her head towards the sagging doorway and listens for a woman's voice, but hears nothing. She eases herself up from her hiding spot and crawls towards the chest against the wall. Her search yields a flashlight that she hopes she won't have to use. One of the first things the other survivors had told her was to scavenge as much as she possibly could during trials, whenever she possibly could, especially if she wasn't willing to venture into the forest beyond the campfire. Their advice is unnecessary, however; Feng Min has looted a thousand chests in just as many video games. The most useful thing are the tools, in her opinion.  
  
She lets herself drop from the awning and lands in the grass. Distantly, she hears another generator whir to life. Who have they lost? She's only spotted Meg so far, and Meg hadn't stayed long before she'd gone running to disrupt a commotion they could hear nearby. Feng Min is impressed by her ability to outmaneuver the monsters they called _killers_ , but she can hardly bring herself to act so selflessly. She's watched Meg run in headlong into one of these monsters to get it to drop Claudette. Feng Min isn't about to go trying that any time soon. She can't risk it. _Nothing personal._  
  
They're all different levels of selfless, her fellow damned ones, and all of them are probably more selfless than her.  
  
Feng Min locates the final generator, adjacent to one of the exits. She can see it right there. Knowing she's so close makes it hard to focus on what she's doing.  
  
Something rolls across the atmosphere. A ripple, and then a deafening peal. Feng Min hears a scream cut into the sky, and she looks up. She does not want to look, but she does.  
  
It is a great black thing, enormous and edgeless, slipping through a slit in the sky. Its presence is the world entire, commanding worship, her life in its literal hands. Feng Min watches the claws descend, and then she gives herself permission to stop looking. It will ascend whether she watches it or not.  
  
She holds her breath when the wires spark and then smoke, and covers her face to anticipate an explosion, but the generator just gives a muted buzz and dull thud, and she exhales, picking up them up to try again.  
  
In the end, she and Meg make it out, but not Dwight or Ace. Meg looks stricken and angry as she limps into the gateway, heartbeats pounding up behind her. Feng Min stands on the edge of the imperceptible border, the one thing that will make her untouchable to the Huntress, or any of these monsters— at least for now.  
  
"I couldn't do it," Meg pants. "Not fast enough." She scrunches her face up, eyes closed, a deep crease forming between her brows. "Not fast enough," she repeats, hoarser, quieter, holding a hand against her ribs, where blood wells up underneath.  
  
"Come on," says Feng Min, and they slip through the veil just as the Huntress appears in the entrance to the gate behind them. Feng Min can hear her snarl her displeasure and arm herself— but she doesn't have time to grab them before they're gone, the world reforming around them. The campfire fades into view, and her clothes are suddenly dry, too. A consolation prize, at most. But the victory, however temporary, feels good.  
  
Feng Min takes in the sight of the campfire and thinks that if she can outplay it, she can make the Entity sick of her. Make it want to put her back where she belongs.

   
  


Claudette asks, "Have you seen it yet?"  
  
Feng Min tips her chin up, pulling her eyes off of the campfire. She's tired of staring at it, but she can't bring herself to experience another empty sleep, and doing anything else means having to rub shoulders with her fellow prisoners— a distraction she can't humor. She knows it'll only slow her down in trials to become too invested in any one of them. And she knows — more than anything else — how easily people can turn on one another.  
  
"Seen what?" she says, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. Feng Min doesn't mind Claudette. She's smart and resourceful. The latter is what matters most here; there's barely any use for the former in the nightmare, not with the endless repeating nature of their lives. No need to think, no need to question, no need to dream; it would be ideal if Feng Min could hit an _off_ switch in her brain and drop blissfully out of awareness of what her existence has become.  
  
"Well... Sorry, let me back up and explain. People appear here all the time. They're here, and then they're not... We're not sure just how many have passed through here," says Claudette, shaking her head. She drops into a sitting position next to Feng Min. "But for all of that, sometimes we find things left behind by people who used to be here. Or you'll hear something passed by word of mouth. Things they've learned about how this place works."  
  
_That_ perks Feng Min's interest. She'd been told before by the others about their rudimentary knowledge of some things ( _watch out for a symbol on the ground that looks like this... try to scavenge for plants that look like these, and take them with you if you manage to escape the trial... remember, there's another exit that opens up if you're the last person alive... when you hear a screech, it means she's teleporting..._ ), but she wants to know as much as she can. Anything that will help her get better at dodging fate.  
  
"It's a sort of... place that you can find when you sleep, sometimes," says Claudette. "After you've been here long enough, you'll become aware of it."  
  
"What?" says Feng Min, her brows lowering. "Like a dream?"  
  
"No," says Claudette. "It's not anything that we can explain." She looks like she's a little frustrated that she can't articulate it for Feng Min. "It doesn't look like anything, but you'll know it when you're there. It's a... state of existence. Everything is flat, but you just know what's happening. You don't see or hear or think or feel anything. But you know what's happening."  
  
A rare laugh bursts from Feng Min, one high, disbelieving note. "What? That doesn't make any sense."  
  
"None of this does." Claudette smiles grimly, like she understands. "How do I... Oh, I've got it. Okay, have you ever heard of something called 'blindsight'? Some people with functioning eyes who are blind because of damage to their brains have been proven to be able to identify shapes and edges in front of them, even though they can't actually see them. There's been a lot of tests. They still receive information despite not being able to _see._ " Claudette takes a breath. "There are more senses than we think. Humans just typically don't have access to them all. But here..." Claudette looks almost wistful about it, like she wishes the circumstances were different so that she could appreciate the wonder of it.  
  
It's a lot to take in, and Feng Min can only think of one question. "How will I know that I'm there?"  
  
"You'll just know," says Claudette. "You'll just be there. You'll be able to feel that thing there. The Entity. I think that whatever it is, it's a part of the Entity's world. And if you spend enough time in it, you'll start... changing."  
  
Feng Min pulls her knees up to her chest, staring down at her sneakers. "That sounds like a reason to be afraid of it."  
  
"I know. But you'll become aware of things that will help you survive. Your mind will give you new senses. You'll be able to use them during trials," says Claudette. "You'll be able to sense where the others are, or where you should be going next. You might even eventually get a feel for where the... killer is."  
  
"So it gives you ESP," says Feng Min, her mind latching onto the first trope she can think of.  
  
"If that's how you'd like to refer to it," says Claudette. "We call it the Bloodweb. Or... others started calling it the Bloodweb, and that's just what it's called now, I guess."  
  
"And this happens to everyone?"  
  
Claudette nods. "It's going to happen to you, too."

   
  


She wonders if her parents have felt her absence. If time is passing for them the way it passes for her. That could mean that no time has passed at all, or, like Jake described, it could mean that a thousand years have come and gone; Feng Min cannot be certain which is more likely. She thinks they probably wouldn't notice that she had gone missing for quite a while. It's sort of comforting; she doesn't like the idea of them mourning her. She had already betrayed them so much. She knows how much she'd hurt them by running away from home, defying their expectations, always seeking an escape.  
  
Maybe they'll go back to China once they realize that she's never coming back. She hopes they do. She hopes they don't waste their time looking for her and that they go back to the place they began and start again without her. They deserve that much. So many years of hard work and struggle in the U.S. had only brought them a missing daughter.  
  
Feng Min thinks that she's always been an escapist, for as long as she can remember. Video games, when she'd been younger, then the pursuit of infamy. The drive to be the best had mutated into a monster that had swallowed her up whole. Sometimes, she suspects that this whole nightmare dimension might be her brain finally snapping like a dry twig. Her turbulent adolescence had brought her... what? Nothing, now. Nothing that matters. It's all gone now, all the brief victories and high pressures and the self-destructive spiral with it, too.  
  
She's thought a lot about the last thing she'd been doing before she appeared in this place. Another blackout drunk bender, hanging out around the back of a bar, trying to get a hold of one of her former teammates, begging him for a ride back to the dorms she was soon to be evicted from. He was the only one that answered, the only one who still seemed comfortable talking to her now since the rumors of her expulsion had been confirmed publicly. Her tongue had gone all gooey in her mouth and he'd asked her if she'd been drinking again. She'd hung up in anger and accepted a ride from a man who had pulled over for her. After that... she doesn't remember. And then she woke up here.  
  
Thinking of the sort of person she's become over the past year makes Feng Min's guts roil. There's a sense of serving out her sentence in this place— retribution for potential lost, opportunities wasted. All because she'd had no idea how to cope with things. With anything. She remembers the smugness she'd felt when she'd taken the first opportunity to move out to the west coast after being signed to a team, like she'd finally gotten to say, _Look, you were wrong_ to her parents. To say that she had been a disappointment to them would be an understatement.  
  
There's a grim satisfaction in knowing that, if anything, this place is keeping her sober and forcing her to stay focused on something. If she tries to look at it all like it's a game she's playing and she's doing the necessary grind towards victory, it doesn't seem so bad. Until it gets hard, or scary, or excruciatingly painful, or deadly.  
  
But until then, it doesn't seem so bad.  
  
She comes to learn that most types of wounds, even the ones that look really bad, aren't that painful in the end. Mostly because of the adrenaline. The Entity seems to hold nothing against the human body. It lets them all bleed and spit and choke and cry, even if it doesn't let them get sick or grow hair or age or change in any perceptible way. It wants blood, and it gets blood, and it can have a refill any time it wants.

   
  


The place Laurie once identified to her as _Haddonfield_ has an eerie familiarity about it. The cars and homes are outdated, sure, but Feng Min had grown up in a suburb a lot like this one after her family had moved to the U.S. She'd been 7 at the time. She'd played on a street like this throughout childhood.  
  
But... there's nothing really _natural_ about it. Feng Min has noticed that the Entity doesn't really seem to have an understanding of what it's trying to replicate. She finds obstacles in strange places, or objects where they shouldn't be. Debris and detritus lays everywhere within the realms. Old pallets. Tires. Abandoned cars. Remnants of human life that no longer belong anywhere. A lot of the places that hold trials seem to be ever-shifting, the features changing every time Feng Min happens across one, so that they all blur together, impossible to identify or begin to memorize. The single walled portion of Lampkin Lane looks like a memory of a memory of a memory. She doesn't like being here. It gives her an incredible feeling of dread.  
  
The most interesting thing about Haddonfield, Feng Min thinks, is that it's Laurie's hometown. She wonders what Laurie has done to deserve that. Laurie apparently knows the monster that stalks this realm, too. She calls him _Michael Myers_ , and the fact that he just has a plain, normal, _human_ name creeps Feng Min the hell out. It implies that he's a _person_ , and to accept that is unconscionable right now. What kind of person could do things like this?  
  
It's like that with some of the others, too; they _know_ some of these monsters, or the places they seem to be tied to. They know their names. Feng Min is astounded. She can only be grateful that she hasn't recognized anywhere the nightmare has taken her, yet. She doesn't think she could bear seeing a place she loved warped by the Entity for its torture trials.  
  
Right now, she's trying to stay quiet as she carefully takes the stairs down into the basement of a home. She knows there's a generator down here because she's seen it before. Being down here gives her a claustrophobic feeling of panic, but panic is something she's becoming more used to tamping down. She needs to stay sharp.  
  
_Focus._  
  
She has no tools; she hasn't been able to find any yet. But she's becoming steadily more confident without them. Feng Min has built her own computers since she was 14; she has a rough idea of how things fit together, and repairing generators is largely about reconnecting power sources and pushing parts back into place. _EZ,_ she thinks.  
  
Her hands are getting sticky with oil. The nervousness surges up again, and she takes a deep breath that she regrets, because it tastes like the smoke the generator is putting out. She can hear footsteps pounding on the grass outside a window. Feng Min goes still for a moment to try to get an idea of direction, but they've faded before she can tell. It's still enough to make her want to investigate, and she wipes her hands on her shorts and carefully picks her way up the stairs.  
  
Once she's up there, she can hear the footsteps again, rustling the grass. She creeps over to the window — there's never any glass in them, she'd noticed a while back — and slides out of it, pausing once she's on the other side.  
  
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere: heartbeats, making her regret that she'd come up.  
  
"Run!"  
  
It's Quentin, his pale face even paler than usual, bone white in the moonlight. Poor kid. He looks like he needs a good sleep more than any of them. He looks so forlorn a lot of the time, like he's already accepted all of this. Even being so young. But, right now, he just looks afraid.  
  
Feng Min doesn't need to hear him twice. She's not about to turn around and look at what's following him. She knows that the Shape called Michael Myers has an uncanny ability to just _appear_ where they are. He is indiscriminate with his knife, the mask betraying nothing. She has never heard him make a single sound.  
  
Cutting across the street, Feng Min wonders — it's not the appropriate time, really — why the Entity thinks Lampkin Lane needs so many garbage cans.  
  
She spots Nea inside of one of the houses across the street. She's working on a generator that rumbles to life at that very moment. Feng Min sprints towards the porch and spares a quick look over her shoulder. Quentin is right behind her, and only a few paces from him is Myers, who doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry towards the inevitable. She has to make a decision, _fast._ Turn to her instincts and reflexes and let that do all the rest.  
  
What she ends up doing is cutting away into the bushes at the last moment, right before she reaches the porch. Quentin stumbles into the doorstep. It's a moment that costs him. As soon as Feng Min has disappeared around the back of the home, she hears the scream. Quentin. She closes her eyes for a moment, winces, is guiltily glad it's not her.  
  
She can hear Nea shouting, and the sound of Quentin yelling in pained protest. She doesn't want to look. She mustn't look. Where is her objective?  
  
She finds a generator in a nearby backyard, with plenty of cover on most sides of her body. No sign of heartbeats.  
  
Shaky hands. Wire to wire.  
  
Across the street, a scream pierces the false night.  
  
Wire to wire.  
  
"Focus!" she says under her breath. Where's the adrenaline when she needs it now? She gropes around for it helplessly, trying to identify it somewhere in her body, but it is not there. She's just scared, and the situation is spinning out of control.  
  
She can hear indiscriminate shouting in Nea's distinctive sharp voice. Something awful is happening across the street.  
  
Sparks fly from the generator, stinging Feng Min's hands. She feels the zaps like little burns, pulling them back to her body with a hiss of pain. She hears thudding footsteps coming around the fence and looks up. Jake is there, his hood pulled halfway up, partially muffling his mouth. He seems surprised to see her there, but he looks like he's in a rush.  
  
"Are you...?" he prompts with urgency. His eyes are trained towards the source of the screams.  
  
Feng Min shakes her head. _No._ "I need to finish this," she says, gesturing to the generator. "I'm almost—"  
  
Jake is gone before she even finishes her sentence, vaulting over the fence and darting away. She can hear him shout, " _Hey!_ " in an attempt at distraction. She can also hear the Entity announcing itself from the sky, and Quentin's gasps and sounds of struggle. Nea sounds like she's putting up a good fight, but it also sounds like she's been hurt.  
  
The generator blows in her face. Feng Min lands on her ass and blinks in shock, hoping that Myers is distracted enough not to notice the sound of her mistake. She tries to recover her lost progress as quickly as possible, and soon it starts singing. That leaves one last generator: the one in the basement she hadn't gotten to finish.  
  
Which means that she has to go back across the street. Feng Min cuts through the back door and creeps down the hallway towards the front door. She stops in the open entryway when she gets there, looking around the corner, and gets an idea of what's going on.  
  
Jake is trying to pull Quentin free from the grasp of the Entity, which has its fingers, spider legs, crab claws, tentacles, branches, fucking awful demon talons, whatever the hell they were supposed to call it, caged over Quentin's body. It's a fight that Jake isn't winning. Myers is hauling a thrashing Nea down the street towards one of the hooks, and the way he shoves her down on it seems particularly impatient; it's sharp, and it cuts through her shoulder and chest like a cleaver shredding a steak. Nea immediately begins to struggle, screaming in pain and rage.  
  
Myers turns his attention back towards Jake, within whose arms Quentin has just turned to ashes and been claimed by the sky. Jake starts running. And then he spots Feng Min over by the front door, crouching there. He doesn't shout for her. Doesn't betray her position. He just gives her a look and then keeps running, but Feng Min has the distinct sense that they've already lost.  
  
They do not escape. Not one of them. 

   
  


At the campfire, Nea rounds on Feng Min immediately.  
  
"What the hell was that?!" she shouts. She's whole and new again with no sign of the trauma she'd just endured. What felt like just seconds ( _an eternity_ ) ago, Feng Min had been watching her hanging from a hook with blood soaking her jeans bright red. Now, she's whole and wholly angry, and Feng Min has a pretty good idea why.  
  
"What was what?" she asks anyway, just to hear what Nea has to say.  
  
"You just _completely_ fucked Quentin, and that got _me_ fucked!" snaps Nea. She's gotten right up in Feng Min's face, glaring down at her. Nea's got eyes the color of cold steel. They're not kind eyes. She raises a hand, like she's about to prod Feng Min in the chest, so she takes a neat step back.  
  
She keeps her voice low and steady and tells herself just to engage the way she might with an Internet troll. Just calm. Granting no satisfaction. "He tripped," she says.  
  
Not many of the others are paying much attention. Arguments break out over the campfire constantly. Sometimes the survivors take issue with one another, questioning their decisions, trying to probe their willingness to cooperate. These kinds of tactics seem like a waste of time to Feng Min.  
  
"He didn't fucking trip!" says Nea. She rounds on Quentin, who is back there with them, alongside Jake, who has already wandered back to the tree line. "Did you?"  
  
Quentin's downward-turned eyes look even more hopeless as he shrugs. He looks incredibly uncomfortable to Feng Min, like he'd rather not be involved.  
  
But Nea is insistent on her interpretation of the events. "You came towards the house _I_ was in, and you made it look like you were gonna go in there, but then you turned off, and you screwed Quentin up. _You_ acted unexpectedly, so _you_ made him fall over, so _you're_ the reason we _all_ got fucking killed."  
  
Her ranting gains David's attention. He's sitting cross-armed at the fire, looking amused by it all. "What's that?"  
  
" _Her!_ " snaps Nea, pointing at Feng Min. "You're _always_ selfish when you're in a trial. Don't think we haven't all noticed you sneaking around. If that's the way you want to do it, then _fine._ But not if you're going to let _us_ get killed."  
  
David laughs, low and indulgent. "It's goin' to happen, luv."  
  
"I didn't ask for your opinion!" Nea barks. She turns with an expectant look back to Feng Min, who has been quiet for some time.  
  
Feng Min couldn't find the hatch. She'd tried, after Myers had executed Jake, but it was impossible to go completely undetected between all of the windows and open sight lines. As for Quentin... Nea doesn't understand. It had never been about hurting Quentin. She had made the choice that she had to make. No control over anyone's fate but her own. She doesn't think Nea gets it. Nea is not driven the way that Feng Min is. Not in the way that lets her drill at a goal until she holds the whole multifaceted thing in her hands.  
  
"We're not allies. We're torture victims. Playthings. Patients. Whatever you wanna say," says Feng Min. "You know, like reality TV shows? No one's there to make friends. They're there to win the million dollars."  
  
"This isn't a TV show," says Nea, rolling her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed bright red with anger.  
  
"I didn't say that," says Feng Min. She's trying not to feel intimidated; Nea's a little taller than her, and probably stronger, too. "I'm just saying that I see the rules of the game differently than you do."  
  
"It's not a— did you just call this a _game?_ " says Nea in disbelief. "What about _any_ of this is a _game_ to you? Do you think it's funny?"  
  
Feng Min is annoyed that Nea would draw that conclusion. "No, of course I don't," she says impatiently. She presses her lips together and tucks her chin in so that her bangs cover her eyes while she thinks. "I'm just saying that this place has rules, and the trials have patterns. And I choose to view the trials as a series of tasks that need to be completed so that _I_ don't have to die. So if this were a game, the only team I'm playing for is mine. If it helps you feel better, then I'm sorry. But it really isn't personal."  
  
Nea just looks pissed off. But she also looks like she knows that there's nothing she can do about it. Still, she's back in Feng Min's face, sending a chill down her spine. She has a feeling that Nea is not going to be very generous to her any time soon. "That's not the point. It's—"  
  
"Hold on," comes Jake's voice. Feng Min isn't sure how long he's been standing there watching, but he's there now, right by the campfire. "I was there. Look, she... she was trying to finish generators. I'm the one who screwed up. I couldn't grab Quentin in time, then I couldn't get to you in time. I miscalculated. That one is on me."  
  
Feng Min is surprised at what he is saying, and it shows on her face. For Jake to join in a conversation like this seems unusual.  
  
Nea deflates slightly, but her eyes are still narrowed at Feng Min. "I _am_ watching you," she says, like a warning, and then she stalks off, hopefully to blow off some steam.  
  
_That_ remark gets under her skin. Who does Nea think she is? Nothing about this place has made it obligatory that Feng Min do anything except protect her own ass. Gone are the days of teamwork for her.  
  
David snorts. Tapp just sighs from his spot. Bill gives a huff; Feng Min thinks he's half-asleep. She thinks she needs some time alone, too, and she picks off towards the spot Jake usually wanders about. She's not sure if she should be surprised that he follows her there.  
  
If he has anything to confront her about, he doesn't voice it. He just stands there with his hands in his pockets.  
  
"Is she always like that?" Feng Min asks finally.  
  
"She's hot and cold," says Jake. "She reminds me of me. When I was a lot younger, I mean."  
  
"Do you think she hates me?"  
  
"No. But I know she can get carried away sometimes," says Jake plainly. "You've probably seen how... emotionally involved things can get."  
  
That could mean any number of things, but Feng Min thinks he's probably referring to all of them, a little bit. She's observed allies and friendships and rivalries. She's also convinced that some of the others are probably fucking, but it's been hard to confirm that one. Still, she's noticed some interesting patterns for when the others choose to wander into the fog and who goes scavenging together. Not that she cares who Meg is hooking up with, or if, as she suspects, David may be gay. Sometimes, she sees Quentin and Laurie sitting with their heads together, talking quietly. She's had trouble identifying the sort of kinship between them; she wonders if it might be because they're both so young, and both of them are being punished so directly by the Entity.  
  
She can't blame the other survivors for seeking comfort in one another. There's not much else to do in this fucking purgatory; limited ways they can all feel anything aside from terror and despair. But she knows, again, must know always, that she cannot get attached to anyone here. She cannot expend her hope or her despair on anyone but herself. She's always survived that way.  
  
"Yeah," says Feng Min. "I'm not..." she trails off. "I'm not like that." Not a team player.  
  
Jake lowers his chin, looks contemplative. "What did you do? Before all of this?"  
  
She wonders whether or not to share. She wonders if she should anticipate having to justify her own skill. Feng Min is used to having her competency challenged. Not that it matters any more. Not just because she's here in the Entity's realm, but because shortly before she'd ever shown up here, she had been fired from her team.  
  
But it'd still sound better than _nothing; I got kicked out thanks to a scandal, which led to another scandal, and now I'm an alcoholic failure that gets blackout drunk every night._  
  
It still stings to think about it. _GG. You tried to be something. You suck._  
  
"I was a professional video game player for the Los Angeles _Laser Bears_ ," says Feng Min, and then she adds, dryly: "It wasn't the American Dream my parents wanted for me."  
  
He slants a brow. "Video games, huh?"  
  
She expects, maybe, to hear a question she's answered a hundred times before ( _what do you mean video games are a pro sport now? how much does it pay? do you feel like you're treated differently because you're a girl? what are you going to do when you grow out of it?_ ), and says, "Yeah. 2015 world champions in _Mistgrid._ I main Valden." What she's saying doesn't seem to register any recognition with him. Feng Min shrugs. "It's a big deal if you're into gaming."  
  
"I don't— didn't even own a TV," says Jake, shaking his head. "But that's cool."  
  
No follow-up questions. She likes that, so she asks, "What about you?"  
  
"Mmm. My life isn't complicated." A beat. "...wasn't. Wasn't complicated. I worked outside. I hiked a lot. I went to bed on time every day." He shrugs, as if indicating that's the extent of it. Feng Min knows it can't be, but she also knows better than to pry.  
  
"That sounds like a perfect life right about now," says Feng Min, letting her mind wander to the temptation of missing the comfort of her familiar mattress. "Didn't mean to bring the mood down."  
  
Jake presses his lips together, half-smiling. "Doesn't bother me."  
  
"Thanks. You might be the only one," says Feng Min, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears. "I'm going to go to sleep. Or pretend to sleep, or whatever it is we do when we shut our eyes here."  
  
"All right," he says. He's staring back into the trees, like he always does. She wonders what he's looking for in there, or where he goes when he enters them.  
  
Feng Min turns to go, but she stops when she hears Jake's voice again, abrupt:  
  
"It's Jae-geun. Just... by the way." He's still looking into the tree line, like he's done now, as if his mind is halfway to somewhere else already.

   
  


Feng Min sometimes takes her cell phone out of her pocket just to stare at it. It's a distinctive reminder of her past life. Proof that she once existed. It's got the cracks from all the times she's dropped it. It's got her fingerprints all over it and the charms she'd picked out herself— a folded-paper star, a little Chococat, a miniature joystick that would move if you put your thumb over it. The strap hanging from it is branded with the _Laser Bears'_ logo, and underneath it is the nickname her fans had given her, _Shining Lion._ After being let go from the team, she couldn't bring herself to take it off. Not even after the news had hit the Internet and sent a tidal wave of gossip through the insular west coast eSports community. Inside this phone is her entire life, if she could only access it. She would give _anything_ to see the screen light up right now with a call from her mother.  
  
But as it is, it's merely an object, a flat rectangle with a bit of weight to it. She can always feel it in the pocket of her shorts when she's running away from the killers, and she sometimes thinks that if it ever slips out during a chase, she might just have to go back for it. Feng Min knows she probably shouldn't hold onto it. There is no real use for it any more.  
  
"Is that an iPod?"  
  
A snort escapes her despite herself, and Feng Min turns, looking up to find Quentin taking a seat next to her by the firelight. The campfire is unsettlingly empty tonight. At least seven of their usual number are nowhere to be found, by Feng Min's count, although she isn't sure who may have been called to the Entity and who may be wandering the fog. Everyone comes and goes in the blink of an eye, only ever floating the surface of the pool of time within the Entity's realm— around and around, circling a drain that does not exist.  
  
"No, it's an iPhone," she says. She holds it up to him.  
  
"Oh. Yeah, I think I've heard of those," says Quentin, reaching up to scrub a hand through his wavy hair.  
  
"What year is it?" Feng Min asks right away. She knows that some of the others have significant time discrepancies. For Feng Min, it's 2017; for Laurie, it's 1978; for Tapp, it's 2004. And so on. It's sort of interesting listening to some of them talk about it. Watching Meg and Claudette trying to explain Facebook to Laurie had been undeniably hilarious, although Feng Min hadn't allowed herself to smile or look like she was listening in.  
  
"2009," says Quentin. He's staring at the phone in her hand, fascinated.  
  
"Okay, so they're not really super widespread yet. But wait maybe two years. You'll get to carry the Internet in your pocket _all_ the time, so you can troll Twitter on the bus home and stuff." She hands him her phone, since he seems so curious. He immediately turns it sideways to get a look at how narrow it is.  
  
"Wow," he says. "Pretty cool. It's big. I figured phones were just going to get smaller and smaller." He lapses into silence, staring at their cracked reflections in its black screen. "I wonder what it would say if we could power it up. You think there'd be a signal or not?"  
  
"No way," says Feng Min, shaking her head. "I don't think that thing that brought us all here is going to let us take phone calls."  
  
He gives a strained smile. Quentin's face always looks like he's halfway into a grimace. She wonders if he's always been like that, or if it's being here that's made him look so lost all of the time.  
  
"It's missing a few amenities," he agrees. "Didn't even give us a bathroom or a mini-fridge..."  
  
"If this is a vacation, it's the worst one of my life," mumbles Feng Min towards her lap, so he can't see the way she smiles just a bit.  
  
"I can't decide what I think about any of it." Quentin shakes his head. "I thought, maybe..." He goes quiet. His face makes it apparent that his mind has slipped off somewhere far away. "I experienced something like this before I got here. Not... exactly like this, but I mean... another world. One that most people couldn't see. And then I came here."  
  
Feng Min knows that the place called Springwood is associated with Quentin in some way. At least, that's what Bill had told her, the first time she'd encountered it. She hates the empty, creepy preschool, and she hates the thing stalking its halls. She supposes he's talking about that, but she doesn't know anything else about the details.  
  
"So you think this is another world," she says finally, landing on the one remark that seems safest to ask about.  
  
"It has to be, right? With everything that's happening. People don't just _die_ and come back to..." He clamps his mouth shut. "They don't _usually_ do that. But here... I feel like I'm having one really long, really bad dream. But it feels real, so I can only think that it _is_ real."  
  
"Do you think we're in Hell?" she asks bluntly.  
  
"Depends on if you think we deserve to be here," he responds, and the dark cloud in his eyes deepens. "I don't."  
  
"I think I might," she says, plainly, and rolls her shoulders in an overly deliberate forced-casual way.  
  
"I don't think your sins could be _this_ bad," says Quentin. He's lifting up the little star-shaped charm. The shiny pink paper catches the firelight. He turns the phone over in his hand again. "This is cool," he says finally. "I'd love to play around with it and see if I can get it to turn on."  
  
Feng Min thinks that there is absolutely no chance of that happening, but she surprises herself when she says, "If you like it that much, keep it. Not like I need it any more."  
  
Quentin blinks at her. "I was half-kidding." And then his eyes light up— just a bit. "But I've been talking lately with Claudette, about trying to find some kind of way we might start harvesting power, do some scavenging, find some batteries, try to do it off the gens and bring them back... I dunno. It's complicated. But, yeah, if we can figure that out, it'd be amazing if we could get this thing to turn on. Just to know if it's possible here."  
  
Feng Min can see how knowing if an electronic could be powered could provide a lot of insight into exactly what sort of dimension or state of existence they were now in. "I hope you can do it," she says, and she means it, although she doesn't think it'll ever happen.  
  
Later, she runs her hands over her pockets and feels an old, familiar sense of something missing, of instinctively wanting to scan the floor for it. But, she tells herself; she doesn't need her phone. All it's going to do — the nostalgia, the pining for her past life — is distract her. Hold her back. Get her hurt and worse. Feng Min knows she needs to stay focused. There's just no other way to get through the black future before her.

   
  


Soon, Feng Min experiences what Claudette had been trying to explain to her. It happens in a way that is impossible to describe, even to herself; her perception of the things around her has simply just _changed_. She falls into it suddenly, but then immediately feels that she has been there for an eternity. There is no feeling of fear, but there is no feeling of anything else, either; in this space, her feelings do not exist. The Bloodweb is hardly accurately named. Feng Min can later only recall the sense of an endless blackness. The dark had whispered for her, warned her, wanted her. The whispers felt familiar. She thought that they had already been living inside of her for a long time.


	2. alert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the feedback I've received on this so far <3 This chapter is a little long, but now I can really get started on the craziness to come. Let me know what you think!

Breathing hard out of her mouth through gritted teeth, Feng Min hooks her fingers into the jaws of the trap and pulls. It hurts like hell, _fuck,_ it _hurts_ , and she chokes out a whimper of pain that only draws the heartbeats closer. She can't get it to open; her arms are shaking too much, and the iron jaws are holding tight around her calf. There's a lot of blood, and she can feel it filling her sneaker. She flexes her toes with a painful twitch, disgusted by the way she can feel them swimming in it. A knot forms in her throat, and it gets hard to see as she tries again, frantically, to open the trap.  
  
The pulse grows stronger in her ears. She can hear his footfalls.  
  
He knows exactly where she is, and Feng Min knows that because this is how it always plays out with this one. The Trapper. He's going to come upon her at any moment and tear her bodily from the bear trap and kill her. That's all she can think about as she stares at the bright red fleshy meat of her leg, all shredded open like roadkill. It never gets any less disgusting to see what she looks like on the inside. Not that she'd ever been curious in the first place.  
  
She wants to scream in frustration, but on her third attempt, she manages to get the jaws to spring loose. She falls onto her side and gasps, fumbling to her feet just as the Trapper appears from around the side of the Ironworks. His footsteps are always so measured and steady. Like he's okay with waiting them all out, following them around until they drop dead of exhaustion. She can hear his breathing grow louder as he closes in on her.  
  
Feng Min doesn't want to take even one microsecond to pause and look at the awful rictus cracked across the face of the mask. She starts running, but the huge bite taken out of her leg is sending shocks of pain up and down her body, so she's half limping, clenching her teeth so hard she wonders if she might bite her own tongue off.  
  
She can hear him making a sort of growling, laughing sound behind her. Some of the killers, she's found, vocalize more than some of the others. The more human ones grunt and sigh and shout now and then, but the really warped, fucked-up ones speak mostly in snarls and shrieks, or, unnervingly, complete silence. She's never heard any of them utter a word, but there seems to be a sliding scale of _humanity_ to them all. She doesn't know how she feels about using that term; it doesn't seem to be right, somehow. But she's not even sure she _wants_ to know more about the Entity's servants. Whatever they are, they aren't here to help her.  
  
Feng Min spots an assortment of hay bales arranged in the Entity's usual not-quite-right way. She thinks she might be able to trick him here and slip off into the grass. She runs for it, trying to quickly triangulate in her head where the others are.  
  
Ace. She thinks he's still up by one of the exits. There's a generator there he'd been trying to work on until he'd been injured. She thinks he's still injured, but she's not totally sure; she can't find him. Claudette is already gone; they hadn't anticipated just how quickly the Trapper would be able to snare the first of them. It had made repairing the remaining generators an immediately urgent challenge. She's pretty sure that Nea is somewhere around the other side of the Ironworks, and she knows she probably won't be able to rely on her for any assistance.  
  
Feng Min whips around the hay bales, panting, wishing she'd spent less time sitting around on her computer and more time jogging. The Trapper's heavy footsteps are behind her, steel-toed boots crunching on the dry grass. She tears around in between two of the bales and crouches, waiting for an opening to slip past him, trying to ignore the burning pain in her leg.  
  
Terror has a curious effect of making it hard to see anything. She knows her eyes are working, but it's hard to take in the information in front of her when she's in so much pain and fear. Feng Min knows that she's eventually going to have to get used to this. She'll get stronger. She _has to._ But it can't come fast enough.  
  
The Trapper's massive shadow falls into her field of view. He turns to look for her, pausing for one moment. Feng Min leaps up and rushes past him as soon as he's cleared the space behind him. It catches him off-guard long enough for her to get a bit of distance in between them, but by now, her leg is really starting to hurt, and it's shaking uncontrollably. She's not sure how much longer she can keep running around.  
  
At that moment, she hears the loud tone that indicates that all of the generators are up. This only hikes up Feng Min's stress; she tries to reorient herself. Where had the exits been...?  
  
Eventually, she thinks she has a rough idea of where she needs to be when she recognizes a group of trees, and she sprints towards them. She can hear the Trapper right behind her. He's breathing hard. Not from exertion, but... she doesn't even want to think about it. Like he's angry, yes. But more like he's _excited._  
  
Choosing to cut through the trees ends up being her fatal mistake. She knows she's stepped on another trap even before it snaps shut around her already-injured leg— she can feel the trigger beneath her rubber sole, but by the time she realizes it, it's too late to stop herself from placing her weight onto it.  
  
Blinding pain sets her body on fire, and she screams, although she can't hear herself doing it. Her leg is nearly severed. She can see it, the way it's just bent there, pointed in a direction it shouldn't. Blood is cascading down her calf and quickly pooling beneath her. And now she's as good as dead.  
  
As the Trapper advances on her, Feng Min, crouched miserably over her ruined leg, shaking and stifling another scream, sees Nea go streaking by. Running. She thinks she sees her look her way for just a moment, but she just keeps going.  
  
_Yeah_ , thinks Feng Min as the Trapper reaches for her with a sound that she can only describe as 'a purr fucked-up beyond all recognition,' _I would've done the same thing._

   
  


Feng Min doesn't know where the Entity takes her every time she dies, right after it announces its presence with a soul-flattening sound of the sky imploding, and she's not sure she wants to know. The others say that none of them can ever remember. She can only describe the sacrifice process as a sort of combustion, the Entity burning the life force out of her until nothing but dust remains.  
  
And then she wakes up by the campfire, and it starts all over again.

   
  


Feng Min starts to make a game in her head out of listing all the things she misses. It isn't hard, because the answer is 'everything'.  
  
Her cat. Twitter trolls. The _Laser Bears_. Pudding. Home-cooked meals with Baba and Mama. Taking a bath. Having a stuffy nose. Wiping off the counter tops after cooking. The thrill of quitting a hated job. Deleting and re-activating and deleting her Tinder. Horror movies (maybe not such a good idea now). The smell of detergent. Saying 'hi' to dogs on the bus. Winning contests coast to coast. Dyeing her hair and cutting it all off the next day. Paying for something with a handful of exact change. Her bed. Reading her live chat when she used to stream. Optimism. Shaking sand out of her shoes after a day at the beach. Stomping up and down the hallway arguing with Mama. Apologizing the next day. Period cramps. Letters from her grandparents. The time before she was the black sheep of her family. Having a sense of night and day. Grocery shopping. Cracking the spine on a new book. The feeling of wearing new underwear. Deadlines. Getting a flat tire. Celebrating the new year with her cousins in Shanghai. Her fifteen seconds of fame. Painting her nails. Her life meaning something. Alcohol. Having access to anything that helped her forget.  
  
All generators begin to look the same after a while. Feng Min wonders if the fact that she's getting better at them makes any real difference. It seems like she still keeps getting sacrificed at just the same rate. She's still dying more than she's escaping. She doesn't know if she can count how many trials she's been through now. A couple dozen? Hundreds? She draws a blank when tries to think about it, like that part of her brain has simply been blotted out and wiped away.  
  
She's starting to forget what most food tastes like. The thing Feng Min misses most is the smell of coffee. She thinks that if she were presented with a cup of coffee now, she'd probably faint.  
  
But the dulling of the senses she'd needed so much in the _real world_ — she's been starting to call it that now, like the others do; she feels a little sad about that — comes with a sharpening of the ones she's able to explore in the sleepless drop into the Bloodweb. It had begun showing her things, giving her new awareness. She understands why some of the survivors are afraid of it, but she isn't. There's no reason to be when she has literally nothing to lose.

   
  


"Feng Min?" Claudette has newly arrived back at the campfire. Feng Min isn't sure how long she's been gone. She thinks she's just returned from a trial, because she's starting to learn how to read the other survivors' faces, to see the blankness in their eyes that comes from newly enforced trauma. But Claudette — despite that look in her eyes, or maybe because of it — seems to have quickly regrounded herself. In her hands she cradles what looks to Feng Min like a bunch of weeds. "Can I show you something?"  
  
Claudette has never done anything to bother Feng Min in particular. She's come to discover that Claudette is impressively competent, and that her reserved demeanor does not compromise her ability to innovate in tight situations. Feng Min can recall a handful of times she'd been pretty badly wounded, and Claudette had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, with a first aid kit. She suspects that Claudette doesn't really do these things with the expectation of repayment; it simply seems to be the way she chooses to conduct herself in trials.  
  
"Yeah." Feng Min gets up, wringing her hands in her purple sweater, and tugs it closer around her body. "Wanna grab some more light?" She gestures at the fire. Claudette nods, and they settle down right next to it— close enough that the flames might be able to lick their shoulders. Neither of them are worried, however; the fire doesn't really burn. It's an illusion, like so many other things in the fog. They're mostly alone; Feng Min knows that Dwight, Meg, and Bill set off into the forest recently for a scavenging mission, and she hasn't seen Ace or David in a while, too. She knows there's no real way to tell when they'll come back out of the fog— one of the reasons why, even now, Feng Min still refuses to walk past the tree line. The others have told her about how easy it is to get lost and end up in a killer's territory.  
  
Claudette spreads out an assortment of plants on the packed dirt. Feng Min can see the roots still clinging to some of them— gold, white, and purple flowers, and tendril-like red clusters. "You've been told about scavenging, right?"  
  
"Yeah," says Feng Min. She reaches down for the purple flower. It has a sweet, clear scent to it that makes her feel startlingly sentimental. She puts it down quickly and swallows. "I've been told to look out for different kinds of plants. Something about _offerings._ Tossing them into the fire." She doesn't really understand how it works, and she strongly doubts that the Entity would really care if she made the effort or not, anyway.  
  
"Right. But not just plants. Sometimes, it's things like bottles you'll find in the different realms, or coins, or some memento, like a locket... Bones, photos, any scrap of paper you can find... You can put anything you bring back with you into the fire, and then something just... _changes,_ the next time you're in a trial," says Claudette, spreading her fingers apart for emphasis. "But, another thing you should know is that some of these plants can also be used on injuries. Like topical pain relief to keep you going. Or something fairly sterile that you can pack a wound with. If you can find plants like these ones..." She spreads her hand over the pile. "...and you're not going to sacrifice them and you can _spare_ them, I can turn them into tinctures that you can bring with you to trials."  
  
"Really?" says Feng Min, skeptical. She wonders if Claudette is expecting her to offer something in return; she doesn't really have anything to give.  
  
"Yes," says Claudette, smiling. "It makes me feel hopeful when I help. And when I feel hopeful, I feel stronger." It's a strangely candid thing for her to say, at least to Feng Min, who has never been one for huge displays of emotion outside of _smug competitor_ and _Internet hermit_ and _family disappointment_. She tries not to squirm where she's sitting.  
  
"Yeah," says Feng Min. "Um, okay. That's cool." Claudette's gentle smile doesn't flicker, so she ventures a follow-up question. "I get it, about the plants and healing. The part I _don't_ really understand is how giving the Entity random garbage that we throw into a fire would change anything for us."  
  
Claudette's smile shyly broadens. "You know, we have no idea. We try not to question it too much. Maybe it just likes knick-knacks. All I know is that if you find something unusual out in the fog, you should burn it and see what happens the next time you end up in a trial. Sometimes, it brings us a lot of luck. It's hard to explain. It's like giving the Entity offerings makes it pity us, a little."  
  
Feng Min furrows her brow, sucking her cheeks in. That sounds completely ridiculous to her, but she doesn't want to be rude to Claudette, who has done nothing to deserve it, so she says, "Why would it do that? It just wants us to die. It _likes_ it when we die. I can feel it. In the Bloodweb. You can _feel_ how it just thrives on us. There's just this sense of hunger. Every time it grabs for me, it's all I can think about." Her voice cracks a little on the last syllable, and she hopes Claudette doesn't notice. She stares hard into the fire.  
  
Quietly, Claudette says, "Maybe it doesn't need us to lose all the time. Maybe it sometimes needs us to win."  
  
Feng Min's not about to count on it, but she covets Claudette's ability to believe. To feel hopeful.

   
  


Feng Min materializes in the next trial right next to Nea. Almost hip-to-hip. The moment she realizes, she takes a step back, not wanting to be in the swinging range of a shove. Nea only rolls her eyes once she's gathered her bearings. Feng Min exhales, telling herself to just _focus_ and not allow Nea to distract her. Still, when she looks at her, she can't help but remember — so recently — Nea running past her as she had cowered beneath the Trapper's shadow.  
  
She recognizes the realm they've been dropped into immediately, and she knows its name: _Crotus Prenn Asylum._ She's heard from the others that Nea is somewhat familiar with this place. As they drop to a crouch to get a look at their surroundings, Feng Min wonders if she should ask about it. She has been to Crotus Prenn at least a dozen times, it feels like; she hates the wight that stalks its halls, constantly heaving and gasping like some invisible force is choking what life it still has right out of it. The Nurse is not gentle, with a shriek that makes Feng Min's blood curdle to hear. The Nurse reminds her a lot of some of the enemies she's encountered in survival-horror games. She'd find it all extra cliché if it weren't actually _happening_ to her.  
  
"Hold on," whispers Nea sharply, holding a hand up as they pause behind a covering of crumbling bricks— they're everywhere, echoes of the foundations of former buildings. Nea gestures towards the Nurse, who is slipping around a corner of the main building, before getting up and starting a loose jog over to one of the crumbling entrances, while Feng Min follows.  
  
She's always surprised when the details of the trial environments seem so _real_ when she's up close. Way beyond the ability of her brain to come up with in a dream. When she moves towards the walls, she can see the soot and mildew caked on— layers and layers of it, like the building's just been sitting here, rotting, forever. Disintegrating in a way none of them could ever hope to. Feng Min extends a finger out to the wall and rubs off a streak of black, holding it up to her nose. It smells real, too.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing? Come on," Nea says sourly. She cuts towards a staircase. Feng Min drops her hand and follows her.  
  
"What's with the chip on your shoulder?" she asks Nea, just because she can, and because there are no heartbeats to be heard around them for the time being. The trials aren't the best place to make conversation, but Nea doesn't seem to feel that way.  
  
"You know, I had the number one attitude problem around here before _you_ showed up," says Nea. She's walking in front of Feng Min and not looking back at her as she talks.  
  
The room Nea selects to investigate has piles upon piles of junk inside. Feng Min can make out dressers, bedframes, broken chairs, portraits, folders, tattered and stained clothing— every object seems to plead to be able to tell its own story. She senses that the asylum has a long, ugly history.  
  
There's a generator between two of the piles of debris. Feng Min settles down next to it to get started, and, over the noise of the coils warming up, she says, "Is that a compliment? You mad that I unseated you?"  
  
"Ugh." Nea drops to the other side of the generator. "How old are you? High school?"  
  
"What?" Feng Min stops her work, staring at Nea. "No. I'm 23."  
  
Nea laughs. Feng Min is startled. She doesn't think she's ever made Nea so much as crack a smile in her direction, although she sees the easy camaraderie Nea seems to have with plenty of the others. "You're kidding, right? I thought you were Quentin's age." At that exact moment, a spark leaps out from the generator, stinging her forearm, and Nea pulls it back, cursing. "Ow! Shit!"  
  
Feng Min bites her lip to keep her face from cracking. "Oh, you deserved that."  
  
"You are _seriously_ obnoxious." Nea scowls, picking up a set of wires again and trying to find the ports they need to be connected to.  
  
"I usually have a much bigger audience to be obnoxious to," says Feng Min. "Sorry it has to be you now."  
  
"Oh, right," says Nea, snorting. "You're supposed to be some kind of Internet-famous gamer, right? I heard from Meg. That doesn't impress me, so if you were hoping for that, then, uh, sorry to disappoint."  
  
Feng Min can't help it: she huffs out a laugh. It occurs to her — some small part of her, the little part that still thinks about the past, still covets it — that she probably would have been great friends with Nea in another time and in another place. She can see how Nea's brusque attitude could be good for her. But, here, their personalities only seem to clash in a bad way.  
  
"If I thought it would impress you, I would have told you myself," she says.  
  
Nea is trying to tug a cable into place. She's got both hands on it; it really seems stuck. "How's it feel to be the token female? I don't even need to hear about it to know that you probably are. And you probably got all these men telling you how much better they are than you at it, right?"  
  
Feng Min goes still. Nea is right on the money. She's not sure if that says more about Nea's reading of her, or if it says more about the sorry state of the eSports community— given that Nea doesn't seem to be very familiar with it, Feng Min thinks it might just be the former. She realizes that she's probably easier to read than she'd thought.  
  
"Even if I told you I got by on my skills alone, who's to say you'll believe me?" She shrugs, carefully picking her work back up again.  
  
A loud _thump_ indicates that Nea has managed to relocate the cable. "No, actually, I _do_ believe you. 'Cause of the way you get off on winning trials." The generator's overhead lights dazzle Feng Min blind as soon she tightens the last gear. Nea begins picking off towards the stairs again. They creak under the toes of her sneakers.  
  
"I _don't_ get off on winning," Feng Min says when they reach the bottom of the steps, trying not to look as deeply bothered as she feels by Nea's assessment. She's about to say something else, too, when a hollow cracking sound on the other side of the wall catches their attention.  
  
Feng Min turns, trying to find the source of it, and then comes to a halt when she sees a sort of glow forming in front of her eyes. It's the shape of a body, lit up like pink crystal, visible right through the wall, maybe ten yards out— right behind the door they'd been about to exit. Suddenly, the heartbeats are drumming like a stampede of horses running through her skull. Feng Min has no idea what she's just seen, and it fades just as soon as it appears, but she _knows_ it's the Nurse, and she gasps, reaching out to grab Nea by the wrist. It's instinct— warning Nea about something Feng Min isn't sure she can see.  
  
" _Move!_ " she wheezes, and she gives Nea's arm a hard yank to make sure she's got the message and is keeping up— and she does, her long legs outpacing Feng Min easily.  
  
Nea reaches one of the windows first, and she flies right through it without hesitation, swinging herself over with a gymnast's confidence. She lands nimbly, her shoes barely making a sound as they hit the ground. Feng Min manages to scramble in behind her, tumbling out of the window and dropping into a crouch next to Nea, who's got her back flattened against the wall. Even under a moon mostly obscured by a smoky purple sky, Feng Min can see a sheen of sweat on Nea's face and chest.  
  
They kneel there together, listening to the Nurse make those croaking, agonized sounds right next to them. Feng Min can hear the familiar rustling of her long white gown as she floats down the hall, the heartbeats ebbing away. She catches Nea's gaze, and thinks she might see a flicker of gratitude— but it also might be a trick of the light.  
  
The heartbeats are gone. Nea's body softens. Her knees wobble on to the grass. They have to get moving again.  
  
"What happened?" Nea says finally, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. "You knew she was there."  
  
"I... saw something," says Feng Min, somewhat blankly. "I don't know what it... It was like the opposite of a shadow. I could see her through the wall. Like a glitch in a video game."  
  
"Oh," says Nea, her expression smoothing, the surprise fading away. "You're beginning to see auras. Get excited." She doesn't sound sincere, or enthused; just unimpressed. "If you have any questions about it, you're going to have to save them for later. Short version: something you get in exchange for letting the Entity give you wet dreams. It loves to make you feel like a slut."  
  
Feng Min looks at her in disbelief. "...Wow. Okay." All she can come up with to say is, "You mean it came from the Bloodwe—" She stares at Nea, who has put a hand over her own mouth. "You're trying not to laugh at your own joke?" She doesn't know whether to feel exasperated, or amused, or freaked out: Nea's ability to compartmentalize — switch herself on, off — is unnerving.  
  
"I bet you thought it was funny, too," Nea shoots back, but then she seems to decide it's time to get a little more serious. She narrows her eyes and straightens her shoulders, standing up. "Okay, do you see that?" She points up towards the skyline. Feng Min can make out a set of floodlights behind a grouping of dilapidated semi-structures. "Let's go."  
  
It's a mystery to Feng Min why Nea doesn't just split up with her at this point — there's no way that Nea doesn't know that Feng Min spends her trials focused on generators, trying to remain undetected, and little else in the way of teamwork — but she follows her. They move carefully among the trees, and Feng Min looks up and notices — not for the first or the last time — just how massive the trees are. They're like this in many realms, stretching so far up into the sky that she often can't see the tops. She thinks they could be hundreds of years old. Maybe older. Feng Min thinks of illustrations from fairy tale books when she looks at them. She's sure she's heard the parable before:  
  
_A young girl is cursed to be lost in the woods. She meets a monster._  
  
It's a book with no ending, so far.  
  
They've just reached the generator — it's positioned up against a wall, a spot with poor sightlines but decent cover — when they both hear the clicking, grating screech of the Nurse shifting positions. Feng Min doesn't know what to call it; it looks like teleportation, a feat that would be incredible to view with her own eyes in literally any other scenario, but some of the other survivors call it _blinking._  
  
Feng Min raises her head and spots the red glow of the Nurse's gaze casting light onto a grouping of rocks. At that moment, Laurie appears from behind them, and she goes running off like a shot.  
  
Nea doesn't hesitate. As the Nurse howls in pursuit of Laurie, she starts running in that same direction. And then Feng Min surprises the both of them by doing the same. The compulsion takes her completely off guard.  
  
"Over here!" shouts Nea, waving her arms wildly as she tries to get the Nurse's attention. She throws herself out from behind a tree and into a shaft of moonlight. "Come 'n get me, you bedsheet-wearing bitch!"  
  
_Bedsheet-wearing bitch_ is maybe one of the best things Feng Min has heard anyone say during a trial, and that includes David's usual trashmouth (she doesn't think she'll ever forget hearing him shout _'You're a right fuckin' cunt!'_ right into the Wraith's face, once). But there's no time to appreciate it, because the Nurse doesn't seem willing to take the bait. She gives a tortured, choking shriek and blinks off in the direction Laurie had run.  
  
Feng Min follows. As she cuts through the trees, trailing the Nurse's steady heartbeats, she gets a visual on Laurie again. She seems to be injured; Feng Min can see a dark stain blooming on the back of her blouse. It seems to have weakened her, because she's not moving very fast, and right before Feng Min's eyes, the Nurse manages to cut her down, swinging her handsaw out at the girl. Laurie collapses with a cry of shock to the ground, her hands flying to her stomach.  
  
The Nurse's raspy breathing picks up as she gathers Laurie into her arms and begins floating her towards the asylum.  
  
Feng Min whips her head around. She hears a generator come on somewhere across the area— she thinks maybe around the front-facing side of Crotus Prenn. She doesn't think it can be Nea; it must be the fourth person present with them. As Laurie's screams hitch up in intensity, Feng Min is forced to make a decision.  
  
She ends up following the Nurse into the building, her heart in her throat, so tense that her legs are shaking. Feng Min rarely risks coming near the other survivors even when they're only injured; to approach one on a hook is definitely against her game-winning strategy. She knows that trying to rescue Laurie means potentially putting herself in harm's way.  
  
She's never played defense. On the _Laser Bears_ , she'd dealt damage only, shredding her way through the enemy as one of the team's heavy-hitters, counting on her teammates only when she had no other options. She wasn't _Shining Lion_ for her selflessness; she was _Shining Lion_ because of her ruthlessness.  
  
_Was._  
  
The Nurse moves deeper into the building with Laurie groaning in pain on her shoulder, and as Feng Min sneaks along the thick, dusty carpet, she realizes where the Nurse is taking Laurie. The ominous red glow of the basement calls to her from the top of the stairs. It looks like a mouth, bright and wet with blood, cracking its teeth together in anticipation.  
  
Feng Min hates the basement. She hates the way it never seems like there's any hope she'll survive a trial once she's hooked down there. She hates how she can see light coming through the gaps in the walls— because it doesn't make _sense_ , because they're supposed to be underground. It just makes all of this feel more surreal. Makes it seem like the nightmare she's stuck in really _is_ that, a hell she has no hope of waking up from.  
  
But then she thinks about Nea saying, _'Cause of the way you get off on winning_ , and she thinks to herself, _Fine. I'll show you exactly how I get off on winning._  
  
The best payback is victory, of course. The drive to prove Nea wrong about herself is what gets the adrenaline singing in Feng Min's blood. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and takes a position behind a wall as she waits for the Nurse to blink out of the basement. When she finally hears the shrill peal of the Nurse echoing further and further away, she bolts down the steps.  
  
Laurie's got her hands on the hook, and she heaving with exertion and pain, but she's putting up a fierce struggle. Blood has soaked the front of her blouse black. "Laurie!" Feng Min calls, rushing over. She reaches out, puts her weight into her legs, and lets Laurie use her shoulders as leverage to pull her free from the hook with a sickening tearing sound. Laurie collapses on to her knees, clutching her ruined shoulder, and Feng Min kneels next to her.  
  
"Thank... you," Laurie pants. "Almost... broke free." Her hand is slick with blood. Feng Min blanks out for a moment. She doesn't have a first aid kit, and she doesn't see one anywhere. Laurie seems to notice Feng Min's helpless expression, because she says, "Chest. In the corner."  
  
Right. Feng Min leaps to her feet and runs over to it. She'd forgotten that there's always one down here. Usually, she's in such a hurry to get out of the basement, she doesn't even see it. She strains to lift the heavy wooden lid and opens it up. The first glimpse of the bright red tin box makes her weak with relief. "Must be our lucky day," she says as she pulls the first aid kit free.  
  
She tries to work as quickly as she can, rolling the bandages out under Laurie's armpit and up over her shoulder. She can see how hard Laurie is working not to cry; she doesn't look _scared_ , not really. Just frustrated and in pain, trying to fight the natural instinct of tears. Feng Min wonders how long she's been here. Up close, it's all too apparent just how young Laurie is — she's willowy, with slim legs and the soft features of a teenager — and it makes her heart hurt, thinking of when she was her age. It hadn't even been that long ago when the world had seemed so wide and open, her talent had been approaching its peak, and she had started to see her all of her hard work pay off, so that she could finally say, _See? You were wrong about me_ to her parents.  
  
Laurie flattens a piece of tape against the end of the bandage, right over her sternum. "That's good enough," she says. "Let's go." She's pale; Feng Min wonders how much blood she's lost. It's dripping all over the floor, big puddles of it. Feng Min's shoes are covered in it.  
  
They move up the stairs carefully. Feng Min can't hear the heartbeats, but she hears the screeching as the Nurse blinks from place to place, trying to ferret them out.  
  
The alert tone echoes across the area; the exit gates are ready to engage. Somewhere, Nea had apparently gotten back to work. They need to move.  
  
Feng Min looks into the distance; she thinks she can make out the high entryway of one of the exits— and then, just a few paces away, some bright purple flowers that she recognizes.  
  
"Go ahead of me," she says to Laurie.  
  
"But—"  
  
"Just go," says Feng Min quickly, waving her hands. Laurie gives her one look and then hurries off. Good; Feng Min hopes she gets the gate open fast. She just needs to rip a few plants out of the ground and catch up with her. No sign of heartbeats. She crouches next to the flowers and carefully pulls them up by the roots. She's pulled up three plants and stuffed them in her pockets, hoping that Claudette won't care if they're a bit crumpled, when a blur comes shooting out of the darkness.  
  
It's Tapp, dragging one leg behind him but making an impressive effort to run anyway, a flashlight waving from his hand. "Let's go, _now!_ Go!" he shouts.  
  
The Nurse is coming up behind him, clicking and gasping. Her head lolls like a metronome, hanging at a strange, unnatural angle, and her reaching fingers just barely miss catching Tapp by the back of his vest as he jumps over a pile of debris. Feng Min is forced to abandon her task. She jumps up and runs off towards the gate. She can hear the gate sounding its opening warning. Laurie comes into view through the fog, her hand on the switch.  
  
Nea shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, a sweaty bolt of lightning with sparkling eyes. She's grinning, and Feng Min can see why; there's not a speck of blood on her.  
  
"Better luck next time!" Nea shouts as the heavy doors open with a groaning screech of metal. She flies through the entrance, laughing, just as Feng Min reaches it; Tapp isn't far behind. Laurie's already nowhere to be seen, presumably across the veil that ensures their temporary protection from harm. Their brief, meaningless respite.  
  
There it is. The open sky. Feng Min runs towards it, pretending it really does mean freedom. Still, it never gets any less disorienting to walk through it and suddenly find herself stepping out somewhere around the campfire, any wounds she may have had miraculously gone.  
  
Once she's back in front of the fire, her legs turn to elastic, collapsing with a tremor beneath her body. She feels somewhere between stunned and bewildered; she's amazed that she managed to pull off saving Laurie _and_ escaping without a scratch. The adrenaline she's feeling right now is crazy, flooding her head with a heart-pounding sort of pride. She feels like she's just won a tournament. And that's a feeling that no one — not the Entity, not the killers, not Nea — can take away from her.  
  
Speak of the devil— Feng Min feels Nea's hand drop on her shoulder. She looks up at her.  
  
"Not bad," Nea says, and although she doesn't say anything else before she lets go and strolls away, Feng Min thinks she's just said a lot.  
  
She puts a hand in her pocket, pulls out a handful of damp, muddy flowers, and smiles.

   
  


"Laurie said you really helped her during the last trial," says Jake.  
  
He's approached her out of nowhere, slipping in from the darkness of the trees, unfolding himself from the night. Feng Min puts her hands in the pockets of her shorts. "No. I mean... the opportunity presented itself." She shakes her head: _don't get used to it._  
  
"Sometimes, I think that a lot of what happens out there is a fluke," says Jake, shaking his head. "I make it through a trial with my face half-chainsawed off and I have no idea how I'm still alive. And then sometimes I get killed before I even know what's hit me."  
  
Feng Min cringes at the mental image. She doesn't know the bite of a chainsaw yet, but she's seen its results. She knows her turn is coming. It's disturbing to think about; she tries to put it out of her mind.  
  
"Yeah," she says, finally. "I don't understand why some of you... I mean, why some of the others here are working so hard to help one another. I've been watching. I know it gets you all killed way faster."  
  
"Maybe you don't have to understand why," suggests Jake, not unkindly. "You should just try to survive, like I do. That's how I get through everything. I just survive." He goes quiet, then, his voice lapsing into a contemplative silence.  
  
He's right. She doesn't need to know why; she doesn't think she'll ever understand a single thing about this place. She also knows that she's not about to take a knife to the head for anyone else. Feng Min's hands tighten into loose fists in her pockets. She can feel the tension all along her shoulders. The slowly growing knot of despair in the center of her chest, the one she's been nurturing since she arrived here and maybe long before that, gives a painful throb.  
  
"Where do you go when you go out there?" she asks finally, looking into the darkness, at the whispering trees. "In the fog."  
  
"Do you want to come with me and see?" Jake asks her, turning his serious gaze upon her.  
  
Feng Min hesitates. "No," she says. "Not yet."  
  
"Let me know if you change your mind," Jake says, "but I won't tell you that there's nothing to be afraid of."  
  
Later, she wonders what it is out there in the fog that scares Jake, and how he's able to make himself go out into it anyway. They're questions that she doesn't think she'll be able to bring herself to ask him any time soon. 

   
  


Feng Min is startled to find that the Entity has called her to a hospital.  
  
Snow falls silently from the sky as she stands outside the entrance of an aging building with an exit gate at her back. Disoriented, Feng Min blinks, wondering if she is seeing correctly. On either side of her is a massive sign that is cracked entirely in two pieces; it seems to her that it had crashed to the ground long ago. How, or why, is not obvious. She turns her head from one side to the other, and she realizes that the two halves spell _INSTITUTE._ Of what, though?  
  
There is no mistaking that it's a hospital, though; the sterile white lights, pale blue walls, and crumbling entryway sign — she can just barely make out the words _OPERATING THEATER_ on it — give it away. It's so unusual a sight that she doesn't do anything for a few moments but stare. She's become used to repeating trees and fog and old, old buildings; this place strikes a sharp contrast with them.  
  
She moves cautiously through the front doors. Inside, she finds a waiting room and reception area with neatly arranged seats. The reception desk is largely intact; even the chairs are tucked in, as if whoever fled this place before whatever disaster struck it had taken the time to do so.  
  
There are lots of tiles missing, leaving her with uneven footing. Dust hangs suspended from the air, thick enough to choke on. Feng Min reaches up to brush the snow off her shoulders, and she stands uncertainly at the juncture. There's a hallway to her left, right, and in front of her; she has no idea where to go. She definitely doesn't want to head in the direction of the operating theater; the name itself is ominous enough. Instead, she picks off to the left and slips inside one of the rooms.  
  
It's a disorganized mess, a bizarre arrangement of treatment beds— some of them stacked twice high, tilted at angles, blocking her path. There are many of them shoved into this little room. She wanders over towards one and stares down at the filthy bedsheets. There's a blanket on top of them, tossed off to the side carelessly. She gives the corner of it a tug and it falls to the floor in a cloud of dust.  
  
Finding nothing in that room, Feng Min moves onto the next one, only to find an identical room. Confused, she proceeds to the one next to it to find a strangely-arranged bathroom. Soon, she realizes that there is something bizarre happening to this place; the rooms are all repetitive, like the Entity hadn't known where to put anything, or what actually belongs in a hospital. Some of the bathrooms have waiting room seats; there are wheelchairs abandoned in corners. She counts at least five identical soda machines in one hallway.  
  
Strangest of all, she encounters several televisions. They're set up in random locations, and all of them are blaring static. When she reaches out to try to press a button, nothing happens, and when she looks, she doesn't see any cables coming out the back. Something about that makes her shiver, a full-body tremble, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.  
  
By the time Feng Min finds her third waiting room, she hasn't located a single generator, and she feels completely and utterly lost, so she heads back out to the hallway to try to redirect herself. There's grass growing up through the cracked flooring, so she crouches in it, trying to examine the symbols painted on the walls to see if they'll provide any insight.  
  
"Feng Min!"  
  
She tips her chin up at the sound of her name. Quentin, his hat pulled low over his tired eyes, is dashing across across the hall towards her. He kneels, looking relieved to see her. There's an urgency about him. "Are you all right?" He reaches out and grips her arm, squeezes it. "O-okay, just— have you been here before? You haven't, right?" He's speaking so quickly that Feng Min's brain needs a few seconds to catch up.  
  
"I— no," she says.  
  
Quentin winces. "Listen to me, okay?" He wrenches his hands together. "This one, the... We call him the Doctor. He's _different_ from the others." He's still talking quickly, tossing anxious looks over his shoulder; it's starting to make Feng Min nervous.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"When he finds you," Quentin says, "and he _will_ find you— when he finds you, he's going to do something to your brain. It's going to feel like you're losing your mind. It's like nothing you've ever felt before. You need to be ready for it. He can use it to track you."  
  
"What are you even talking abou—" Feng Min begins, when the air is cracked in two by a shrill scream that echoes down the hallway. Who is it? She tries to place the voice. Meg?  
  
"Shit!" says Quentin miserably, looking in that direction, before he turns back to Feng Min. "When you hear static, _just run_ ," he tries to implore, looking strained and sorry that he can't explain it any more clearly. "If you're around it for too long, you're going to lose control of yourself. And if he catches up to you..." He shakes his head.  
  
Another scream, agonized and long, echoes through the building. It's definitely Meg. Feng Min hadn't recognized it right away because she has never heard Meg scream like that before.  
  
"I gotta go," says Quentin, and he scrambles to his feet, bounding towards the chaos, first aid kit at his side.  
  
Feng Min has no idea what to make of the information he has just given her, but the dread is making her feel sick to her stomach. She takes a breath and tries not to listen when she hears Meg scream again. It's fainter this time— a lot deeper into the building. What could be happening over there? Does she really want to know?  
  
She finally locates a generator inside of one of the bathrooms with a strange layout of tubs. She's kneeling on the tiles, thinking about the bruises that will never get to form on her knees. Not after the Entity wipes her clean again. She thinks that if this is her chance to drink at the fountain of youth, none of this has been a price worth paying.  
  
Something shudders through the very atmosphere, a ripple through the reality of the world. The force of it causes Feng Min to look up. She knows the Entity now when she hears it descend, but it's less hearing and more feeling. _Knowing._ She wonders who it has come to take.  
  
Another scream sounds off. A man's voice, this time. It might be Quentin's; she isn't sure. Feng Min quickly tightens the screws she's struggling to fit in a difficult-to-reach inner part of the generator and stands up as it gets going. She wipes her sweaty palms on her black tights and edges back out into the hallway. There are a number of treatment beds out here, their tattered blue curtains offering at least a bit of cover. Feng Min squints through the fog and the dust, listening.  
  
Another scream— just a wordless howl.  
  
She presses a hand to the wall as she rounds a corner. She spots another sign pointing towards the operating theater. It's barely hanging onto the wall, tipped sideways, and it's flickering weakly. Feng Min follows the arrow, moving past piles of objects that seem too decayed to identify. She can see rebar, a weigh scale, some shelving units... and the hooks. The hooks here have a strange, mechanical look to them. Like medical equipment awaiting a patient to treat. She tries not to look too hard at the brownish crust splattered on most of them, or at the IV bags full of a bright red _something._  
  
Feng Min spots an unusual sign, one that looks sort of like a lightning bolt, framed by two security cameras— which both, curiously, are lit up in red. She has the sense that she's getting closer to where she needs to be, but not necessarily where she'll want to be.  
  
This time, when she hears the scream again, it's even further away— it's moved. And now, she's certain that it's Quentin, because she knows what he sounds like when he's in pain. Before she can decide whether or not to head over, she feels the Entity puncture back in through the sky, another shockwave almost right after the first. She starts to tremble, a little, her anxiety ratcheting. Where is the other survivor?  
  
When she steps into the operating theater, she immediately picks up the sound of more screaming— but it's muffled-sounding. She quickly spots the source, an arrangement of monitors suspended above a cache of fearsome-looking equipment. The images flickering on the screen are frightening and discordant, flashes of gruesome imagery that bob in and out in a sea of static. The screams sound like a recording of a recording, like the footage has been corrupted.  
  
An observation deck hangs above. The glass is either tinted or just really, really dirty, but Feng Min thinks that must be what it is. In a corner of the room, a small split in the damaged ceiling allows snow to come quietly through. There's a strange yellow glow coming from beneath her feet, and old, wooden examination chairs arranged concentrically around the middle of the room, all of them wired together with thick, decaying cables. When Feng Min realizes just how many restraints are secured to the chairs, she gets a sudden, terrible feeling of dread that tells her to flee. The dark miasma of her surroundings seems to whisper to her, telling her that something horrible happened here, once. Something that made the Entity want to have this place here.  
  
Feng Min tries to ignore the monitors as she kneels next to the generator there. She's concentrating so hard to try to get it going quickly that it takes her a minute for her ears to pick up on the footsteps. No heartbeats, though, which means it's an ally.  
  
She stands up and steps into the hallway nearest to the sound, shoving an errant, broken cart off to the side. The footsteps get louder.  
  
But Feng Min doesn't get to find out who the other remaining person is, because at that moment, in a way that she cannot explain, her brain seizes.  
  
That's what it feels like. Like a twitch that starts in her head, stabs her brain, and then ricochets through the rest of her body. Static floods her gaze; it crashes in her ears. The sensation makes it impossible to think, except for one thing:  
  
_What's happening to me?_  
  
Before she even realizes what she's doing — before she can even stop herself — Feng Min drops to her knees and screams. Her hands claw at her head, trying to get it out. The _noise._ The static. Whatever it is. It feels like her brain is being cleaved with a knife. The pain is not physical; it's mental. And yet it is agonizing, worse than most of the injuries she's received here by far. There's no escaping it, no adrenaline, no pain relief, she can only _scream_ —  
  
_Oh no oh no no no no no no no no—_  
  
The static thickens. She snaps her jaw shut. The air is a silver-grey mirage, tugging her along its shoreline, telling her to _Just let go_ , and it gets louder in her ears, and she can hear another scream, and she's not entirely sure if it's her own or not—  
  
Some lizard-brain part of her manages to shout _Hide!_ at her, and Feng Min goes stumbling blindly around a corner. She throws herself into one of the bathrooms and cowers in a shower stall, curling herself up into a ball with her hands clamped over her ears. Her tongue is bleeding; she's dimly aware that she must have bitten it trying to stop herself from screaming. A gory mouthful of blood trails down her chin as she chokes down another involuntary howl.  
  
There are no real thoughts in her head. The static has flooded them out, buried them in an avalanche of sound and warped light. The static lives in her body now. She no longer feels like a part of it.  
  
The sky implodes again, the black claw proffering its warped salvation.  
  
Images begin to appear in the static. It's impossible for her brain to make sense of any of them; they only further scramble her thoughts, overwhelming her with an inhuman amount of sensory input. But she hears it getting louder and louder, so she gets up again to run.  
  
The noise in her head makes room for a strengthening heartbeat, and Feng Min gets the sudden, distinct sense that something has crawled into her mind through her ears. Clutching her head and screaming, she runs without seeing down the hall, sending every crow she passes scattering. But she can't think of stealth right now, or where she should go; she can't think of _anything_ except trying to outrun her own fracturing mind.  
  
Behind her, someone laughs. It's a sound that floats on the static, like a damaged recording. Her agonized brain tells her that it's not just a part of the static: it's the _source_ of it. Below her feet, electricity dances along the floor, sending painful shrieks of white noise into her brain. The laughter behind her continues, picking up in volume and mirth.  
  
Whispers below the static start to wrap around her brain and squeeze like tentacles. The ones she normally only hears when she closes her eyes and falls into the Bloodweb.  
  
Feng Min's frantic, blind running has carried her back to the operating theater, where her boot catches on the grating, causing her to collapse with a cry against one of the examination chairs, tearing open a gash on her forearm. She falls to the floor, tries to scramble back, and then, for the first time, attempts to see past the static at exactly who her killer is going to be.  
  
The figure is in multitudes. Feng Min isn't sure if she's truly lost her mind or if there is more than one person in front of her. The image blinks, appearing and disappearing right before her eyes— except for the central figure, who is walking towards her, swinging some kind of electrified rod from one hand.  
  
When she sees his face, gets one desperate look at it, she finally recognizes what she'd seen flashing on the television screens, and what had been crowding her brain. The Doctor is enormous— seven feet tall, at least, and huge. Bigger than the Huntress, maybe as tall as the Wraith. The top of her head would barely clear his ribs. The figure he cuts is terrifying, not least because of the blinding current of electricity that runs from electrodes on a painful-looking contraption on his head. It seems to be wired, disgustingly, right down into the muscle and skin of his body, tracking down his arms.  
  
Worst, somehow, are his eyes. Not the way they're pried open, although that part is alarming, too. It's the way that they glow. The way that they're fixated right on her.  
  
The Doctor lifts his hand. It's a subtle motion, but then another wave of electricity wracks her body, making her arch from the floor with every muscle in her body tensed up, and she screams until her throat hurts. She rolls to her side, grabbing her head, rocking. It doesn't matter how loud she is now. He knows exactly where she is.  
  
He steps closer to her, laughing. It's a wild, twisted sound, almost hysterical, and it's strange seeing it come out of him, because he can barely move his mouth or jaw in the headgear. Feng Min closes her eyes. Her mind feels like it's about to splinter apart. If she has to die, she wants it to be fast, so she can get away from the oppressive, agonizing torture in her brain.  
  
The Doctor reaches out towards her face, his fingertips scattering sparks over her hair. She can feel a sharp heat, and as she braces herself, she hears, in the static, a voice. Faint.  
  
[  Discipline is required. ]  
  
It's a warped sound, delivered like a bad radio signal, the syllables broken up and pieced back together. But it's as clear as a bell in her head.  
  
Responding in panic, she cries out, "No, don't!"  
  
The Doctor's hand stops just as it alights on top of her head, and for one moment, the static dies; it feels like her ears have been plugged with cotton, her brain suddenly silent. The relief doesn't last; it picks up again, just as strongly, when the Doctor drops to a sudden crouch in front of her, and she turns pale again, shaking and gasping and trying to squirm away. The electricity crackling around his body is blinding.  
  
But he doesn't shock her. His hand skims down over her cheek and stops at her chin. She feels his thumb swipe away the blood there, and is numb with shock, trying to focus her gaze and understand what is happening. His hand is huge. She thinks he could probably crush her ribs in his grasp.  
  
There it is again. The voice in her head.  
  
[ You— can—... hear me? ]  
  
It's difficult to pick up, and there are strange pauses in it, but it's audible. A voice. Did this monster just speak to her? Has she really lost her mind? Why isn't she dead yet?  
  
The Entity's whispers pick up in her ears. She thinks she can hear it laughing at her. Telling her that it has only just begun to start playing with her.  
  
Feng Min forces herself to look at the Doctor, comprehending nothing about the situation. Up close, his face is a terrible thing. It's marred with twisted tissue running over most of his features. Exposed muscle just barely healed over. Scarred in a way she can't even name. She can hear his throaty breathing, and she wonders how deep the wires go into his body. He's staring at her without any expression at all; she's not sure he's even able to make one, with that thing on his head. She looks up at the device and realizes for the first time that he isn't wearing electrodes on his scalp. They're actual _ports_ into his skull, looking as though they were drilled right through to the bone. They hum with electricity.  
  
And then, finally, she makes herself stare into those eerily glowing eyes. What she sees there makes her stomach lurch; she realizes, in a terrible moment of clarity, that whatever is behind the eyes looking back at her, it's lucid. It's self-aware.  
  
And it just talked to her.  
  
The static has dropped again. There is only numbness in its place, and an awful silence. Whatever had been crowding her brain has pulled back into its dark hiding places, leaving her torn and weak and empty. She can barely move from where she's crumpled on the floor. The Doctor is still breathing in hitching, audible rasps, just staring at her, his hand cupping her chin.  
  
And then, something seems to change. Something that douses itself in his eyes, blinking out like a candle flame. He starts to laugh again, and his hand slides up and locks over her entire face, covering her nose, mouth, and eyes, trapping her in a smothered, panicked darkness. Feng Min starts thrashing and kicking at his solid body, trying to scream as she feels him pin her down to the floor, but it's all over before she can even think about what's happening. She hears it, but doesn't get to see it, or, thankfully, feel it: a sharp cracking sound that rises in pitch and then explodes through her entire nervous system, obliterating any remnant of brain activity.

   
  


Feng Min comes to at the campfire in a state of shock. She finds herself rematerialized at her usual spot, sitting in her usual way, but she could not feel more different. Her heart is still racing, and the fear is still gripping her body, her mind still fully engaged in the moment before this one. She clutches at her face, taking deep breaths.  
  
"You okay?" It's Dwight, who has kneeled next to her at some point.  
  
"I'm fine," says Feng Min unsteadily. Her hand slides up to her forehead, then rakes up into her hair, by her temples. Her brain feels so _empty_ , suddenly. Every tortuous moment she had just been experiencing has evaporated, although it had felt like her brain was leaking out of her ears at the time. She's shocked to be in one piece again. All at once, Quentin's warning makes perfect sense. She'd needed to experience it to know what he had meant.  
  
What happened back there? Had she hallucinated what had happened? As far as Feng Min knows — and as far as the others had told her — it's nearly impossible to get any kind of reaction out of the Entity's servants, outside of being hunted by them. And it hadn't been anything like that moment the Trapper had seemed to deliberately enjoy taunting her. The Doctor had _spoken_ to her, somehow. In her head.  
  
It sounds completely insane when she thinks about it like that, but so does everything else in the nightmare. She puts a hand under the left side of her rib cage and squeezes her eyes shut, willing her heart to slow down.  
  
Meg has also reappeared. She's frowning and pink-cheeked, looking like she has a rant prepared. But the only thing she says is, "We all hate being sent to Léry's Memorial Institute." She gives a huff and cracks her knuckles. "I _almost_ outran him. It's that stupid madness thing that he does that always gets me killed."  
  
Bill's at the fire, too, sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed, his cap tugged low over his eyes. "That one's unusually adept at screwin' us up." His statement, and his deeply dissatisfied expression, makes her think that he was the other man she'd heard in the hospital.  
  
"You mean killing us," says Feng Min blankly. She still feels stunned. What is she supposed to say to the others without making them think that all of this torture is making her start to lose it?  
  
"You bet," says Bill, with a sigh. " _Goddamn_."  
  
Feng Min lets her head sink onto her knees, and the others get the signal; they leave her alone with her thoughts. Feng Min has never been so glad for that before— being _alone_ with her thoughts, in her own quiet head. She replays the scenario again in her mind. The whole thing, the static and the whispers and the hallucinations and... and the voice. She tries to glean the facts from what she knows wasn't real. Mining the truth from the well of static.  
  
_It talked to you. You're not crazy. It did.  
  
He did._  
  
Now, she needs to decide what to do about it.


	3. overcharge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to note that I will be moving over the next few weeks, so updates might not be too consistent. Thanks for your patience :) 
> 
> A bit of levity in this chapter with some survivor bonding, before Feng Min throws herself right back into trouble. As always, I'm keen on feedback. If you've got any, let me know!

"It's Halloween," Dwight says.  
  
Most of the other survivors gathered around the campfire don't even lift their chins to acknowledge him. Nea only heaves a sigh and folds her arms across her chest, rolling her eyes. Bill merely fixes Dwight with a hard stare. Quentin is trying to get the grime off of a rusty coin; Feng Min can see the bronze starting to shine through under his thumb. Ace is sole outlier; he's grinning at Dwight.  
  
"How'd you know?" he asks, stretching his legs out in front of him.  
  
A groan immediately follows when Ace takes the bait. Feng Min is both surprised and amused to realize that it came from Claudette. "Please, let's not get started on this again. The calendar thing."  
  
"Okay, but _think_ about it," Dwight insists. "My watch still works. I know exactly how many times it's completed rotation. Everyone knows how many days there are in a month. You can figure it out by—"  
  
"But even if that were true, that would only be the case for you. Did you forget?" Claudette looks like she's had this conversation with Dwight many times before. "You remember it being a certain date when _you_ arrived. But it was a different time for everyone else," she adds, with admirable patience. "Temporally, we're probably not aligned with... the real world. I've been here long enough to know that." She puts a finger to her chin, her eyes darting up towards the ever-present moon. It's a feature that never changes; no matter where they end up for a trial, the moon is always there. It never shifts phases; it neither waxes nor wanes.  
  
"I know. But humor me," says Dwight, raising his hands palms-up in a defensive manner. "If we've got a bunch of contradicting dates, then we arbitrarily pick one. We don't have proof one way or another. What's the harm in going by my calendar? Are you saying you won't want to celebrate Christmas?" He raises an eyebrow.  
  
Nea turns away at this point, yanking her slouchy hat down to cover her ears. Feng Min is starting to think that she should do the same.  
  
"Christmas isn't going to come, Dwight," says Claudette in a way that somehow manages to sound polite. "It never does. Not in the usual way." Feng Min is privately in agreement with her; she doesn't buy the theory that time actually passes anywhere in the Entity's realm. How can it? Their lives have been suspended in a perfect, infinitely reincarnating stasis.  
  
"Well, not right _now._ Right now it's Halloween. I've done the math." Dwight taps the face of his watch like he's pleased with himself.  
  
Feng Min's gaze floats towards Quentin and Laurie, whose shoulders are touching. She can't tell who's leaning against who, but there's a strange look on Laurie's face — a draining of color — that Quentin heeds, too.  
  
"Chri... Christmas," says Quentin abruptly. He tilts forward, while Laurie slides back on their shared log, pulling her knees in closer to her body. He steals a glance at her, and then looks at Dwight, gesturing. Feng Min gets the sense that he's trying to redirect the conversation. "Yeah, I think that would be cool. I think we should do it. We can definitely decorate a tree, at least. Look at them. They're everywhere."  
  
Feng Min watches carefully as something shifts in Laurie— tension releasing as she brings the tips of her shoes together, lifting her head to look at Quentin. It's an interesting exchange of body language that makes Feng Min wonder again about the nature of the relationship between them.  
  
"I'd like that." Laurie presses her lips together tightly, as if there's something else she wants to say, but she doesn't elaborate.  
  
"And we have a Santa Claus," says Dwight, who points at Bill. Feng Min is amazed by his undaunted ability to do and say things she, and any other normal person, would never dare to. Especially to Bill, of all people. Dwight doesn't _look_ bold, but his behavior says otherwise.  
  
But Bill doesn't respond negatively, surprising Feng Min and reminding her that there is still so much she doesn't know about the other people sharing her predicament. The old veteran lets out a skeptical huff of laughter. "Don't you dare go tryin' to sit on my lap." He cups a hand over his mouth, and she sees the amber glow of a lighter on his palm. "I don't deliver presents. Don't like receivin' 'em, either."  
  
Meg bounds up to the campfire, looking like she's been jogging. She's wiping the sheen off her forehead as she bounces over to claim a spot on the log next to Claudette. "What's this about presents?" she asks.  
  
"We're going to celebrate Christmas!" says Dwight brightly.  
  
"Oh!" gasps Meg, her eyes lighting up. She leans forward. "Like decorating a tree and stuff?"  
  
"You've got it!" says Dwight, before turning back to the rest of them, waving his arm. "See, guys? Meg gets it. She gets me. So that's me, Meg, Ace, Quentin, Laurie... Bill..." He's pointing at each of them as he calls off names.  
  
"I didn't agree to any damned thing, chucklehead," Bill grouses.  
  
Dwight's finger lands on Feng Min, who immediately regrets sticking around the campfire. "What about you, Feng Min?"  
  
"I don't like holidays," she says bluntly. She can feel the others staring at her from around the circle. In the intermission of silence, there is the sound of something being scratched over paper from Nea's direction. When Dwight goes a beat too long without responding, looking at her expectantly, Feng Min reluctantly elaborates. "...But I think you guys should do what you want to do. I don't care."  
  
"Still a yes! One for apathy," confirms Dwight. "That makes seven of us." He strains to get a look over the blinding flames at Nea, who still has her back turned to everybody else. "Nea? What say you?"  
  
Nea responds without even looking up. She has to raise her voice to be heard, because she's talking down at her own lap. "Two for apathy," she says. "Also, and yet _again_ , _back turned_ means _do not disturb._ You fucking doorknob."  
  
"Two for apathy," Dwight only repeats, looking completely unfazed by being called a 'fucking doorknob.' It seems like he might be used to it. "It's pretty much a done deal at this point. It's a landslide majority vote." He fixes Claudette with a victorious look.  
  
"I don't know why you think this is in any way whatsoever important to me," says Claudette mildly. "I never said we shouldn't try to celebrate Christmas. I think it's a lovely idea, in spirit."  
  
"Wait," says Dwight, his forehead creasing in confusion. "What were we talking about, then?"  
  
"I don't think anyone actually knows," says Feng Min before she can stop herself. She can't help it; the compulsion to call out the ridiculousness of it all is too much to resist.  
  
"Why are we arguing?" Meg interjects, pursing her lips. "How about everyone shuts up about that and we talk about how to do something pleasant around here for a change? Something _nice_ that gives us all something to do and makes us feel better for a bit. I'm tired of trying to pass time in the same ways over and over." She suddenly turns towards Quentin. "And you! You keep saying you'll come jogging with me, and then you never do. You need to get motivated!"  
  
Quentin looks startled by the sudden topic change, and then embarrassed. Next to him, Laurie lifts her hand to cover her mouth. "Uh, yeah. You got me there." He rubs his knuckles against his temple, looking a little overwhelmed. "I know that—"  
  
"So! Christmas!" Ace interrupts. "Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing if we could scrounge up a little party 'round this shithole. Do something other than have to listen to you people bumping uglies in the forest." He doesn't specify exactly who he is accusing of 'bumping uglies,' something Feng Min is extremely grateful for. " _God._ What I'd do for a goddamn drink right now. I _tell_ you." He has a look of longing on his face, and the mood shifts; she feels a sudden surge of nausea when she recognizes it. It's a difficult task, then, not to let her mind stray to thoughts of alcohol, how it would be the perfect thing to shut her brain off so she could tune out her surroundings in this hell. She knows that's not true, that it's never been anything but poison to her life, health, and sanity, but right now, the longing for something to numb out the black hole in her guts is intense.  
  
Maybe she owes the Entity one thing: the nightmare has served as a sort of rehab for her. Mandatory sobriety. Feng Min wants to laugh, but she just bites her lip, her attention drifting back to the conversation as Ace is in the middle of a story.  
  
"...and, listen, I _bought_ the damn yacht. Yeah, I didn't need one that big! But I could _have_ one that big. That's the appeal. You know, maybe it _was_ stupid. I've done a lotta stupid things. Yeah, bet you can't believe that, huh? _Me?_ Mr. Got-it-together? But that was my midlife crisis purchase. I'm glad it wasn't something like a car. I have enough cars. Or, _God_ , a _woman._ No offense, ladies. But I'm sick of it! Three wives. _Three._ You can't say I didn't try. I've been single for _five_ years now, and it's the best damn thing I ever did for myself. I'm free to do whatever I want, wherever I wanna do it! So if any of you ladies are thinking about starting something with me, I'm _sorry_ , and I completely understand why you'd feel that way, but I gotta decline."  
  
Claudette immediately begins coughing loudly into her elbow, turning away from the fire to shield her face. Meg looks over, and when Feng Min listens closely, she realizes that Claudette is struggling not to laugh. Meg begins thumping her on the back with deep, slightly rough pats, her mouth twitching as she flicks her eyes towards Ace.  
  
"You're forgiven," says Meg, suppressing her own cough. " _Mm_ ph... er... Anyway, how is this a story about Christmas?"  
  
Ace adjusts his sunglasses. "I bought the yacht around Christmas," he says.  
  
"That doesn't make it a..." Meg trails off. "Never mind."  
  
Claudette's coughing has abated, and she flaps a hand beneath her chin like she's trying to compose herself.  
  
"Well..." Quentin offers, clasping his hands together and leaning in; the firelight catches his face. "When I was growing up, we'd go all-out. We were that family with all the decorations on our lawn. Had it all up on the very first day of December, and took it all down the day after Christmas. Anyway, when I was 13, my dad decided I was old enough to start really helping him with the hard stuff. So that meant going up on the ladder. Long story short, I was watching this squirrel on the roof, and I fell and broke my left femur."  
  
"Bet that taught you not to get distracted any more," Bill says with a faint note of amusement, behind a cloud of smoke.  
  
Quentin nods. "Oh, yeah. For sure. But my parents really made that Christmas special for me. I'd never seen my dad look so upset with himself. He took it, uh... personally. I mean, he was the principal at my high school. He'd watch me in the halls."  
  
"That's weird," says Nea, saying exactly what Feng Min is thinking; she still hasn't made any effort to turn back around, hunching over her paper.  
  
"I know. But I don't blame him. I can't. I used to feel like a lab rat being monitored by a 24-hour camera. But I... I grew up and found out that he had his reasons." Quentin shakes his head, looking troubled for a moment. "Look, uh, anyway... It's been a while since we did Christmas. But that one is a memory that makes me happy. Maybe I'm here now, but I still got to enjoy some good times." He smiles weakly. Feng Min isn't sure if he fully believes what he's saying.  
  
"That's exactly how I feel," says Meg, her expression both determined and defiant. Feng Min still can't decide if her high spirits are a well-coordinated act or the real deal, and she's still wondering about that when Meg suddenly looks towards her. "How about you? What do you do for the holidays?"  
  
"Uh," says Feng Min, trying to stall for time. She can't muster up a single good memory of celebrating holidays with her family that she could share as a story with the other survivors, and to do so would be forcing herself to be uncomfortably open with them. "I usually go visit my parents, even though we spend the whole time arguing. But I... keep going anyway. It's one of the few times I have time off from... well, touring and streaming, and..." She trails off at the recollections these terms stir in her mind, suddenly all too aware of the eyes on her. She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth. "My family doesn't celebrate holidays like Christmas. Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival... That's how I was raised." She hopes that this is enough personal information to be able to reclaim her right to silence.  
  
" _Jesus_ , Meg," rings out Nea's sarcastic voice. "You straight up assumed everyone celebrates Christmas like you do."  
  
Meg flushes. "Oh, stop it! You know I didn't mean anything like that, right?" she says, looking at Feng Min with concern.  
  
"I know," says Feng Min. " _Stop_ it, Nea." There's a thread of irritation that slips from her mouth to go through those last three words.  
  
"If you ask me, all of it is bullshit. I've been an atheist since I was 11 years old," says Nea, ignoring her.  
  
"But nobody asked you," says Feng Min, trying not to allow herself to be bothered by Nea's apparent determination to pick fights with her for no reason. She doesn't need Nea as a friend, but she doesn't need her as an enemy, either. That feeling doesn't seem to be mutual.  
  
"Who cares?" retorts Nea, but she props her pile of papers up on her knees and returns to work. Feng Min tries to get a look at the drawing, but it's a black blur behind the shimmering heat of the fire.  
  
"You're all givin' me a goddamn headache," barks Bill.  
  
Laurie sits up and lowers her chin down. "I'm sorry," she says, which strikes as absurd to Feng Min, because Laurie has barely said a word.  
  
"You know I wasn't talkin' to you, Laurie," Bill says, not nearly as harshly.  
  
"Now, uh," says Dwight. "Let's get back to the basics. We've gotten off track."  
  
Feng Min's attention fades away from the conversation, she slides over on her log to slip closer to Nea, who doesn't lift her head up in response; she's uncertain if she should try to start a conversation, or ask her what her problem is. As Meg, Claudette, and Dwight begin to talk about whether or not it is a stupid idea to try to cut down a tree ( _definitely_ , Feng Min thinks), she peers at the worn pile of papers in Nea's lap.  
  
It takes her a moment to recognize it, but soon she silhouette of the dilapidated semi-structure of the Crotus Prenn Asylum becomes apparent. Its interiors are fully exposed from the bottom up, its steel beams great, dead trees, ungrounded and uprooted, reaching towards the moon. It's a fairly accurate depiction, if Feng Min's memory serves right (and if it doesn't, she thinks bitterly, the Entity will inevitably bring her to another trial and remind her).  
  
Nea looks at her in a suspicious manner, but she says, seemingly at random: "Right here."  
  
Feng Min blinks. "What?" she asks, wondering if Nea is going to be mean-spirited again. She thinks she'll just get up and silently walk away if that happens.  
  
But all Nea does is jab a finger down at the center of the sketch, right over an intact portion of the wall by the ruined entrance. Nea's managed to squeeze in a surprising amount of details, although the paper she's using has seen better days. "Right here is where I was when that _thing_ took me."  
  
_Oh_ , thinks Feng Min, remembering again how the other survivors had told her of Nea's affiliation with this place. "You were actually there? In the real world?"  
  
"Yeah. Look, I'd known about it for a while. It was a local legend. I didn't really believe it, but I had friends who had grown up around there since they were, like, babies, and they said it's always been a thing. _Ooh_ , the spooky, abandoned mental hospital! Of _course_ people were going to say it was haunted. I thought there was no way anything was going to happen to me when I went up there." Nea rubs her blackened palm against the side seam of her shredded jeans. The charcoal disappears into the denim. "Even right now, I still can't figure out what the hell happened. I don't believe in the supernatural, or in anything else, but I'm still here. This place is fucking impossible." Nea has a perturbed expression.  
  
Feng Min mulls over this information that Nea has surprisingly offered unsolicited. She has several questions, but there's one that stands out, so after a beat, she asks, "Is it possible that every person here..." She motions towards their fellow survivors, who have quieted down around the fire pit. "...has a connection to something in this world?"  
  
If Nea hears the hesitation in Feng Min's voice, she doesn't make it known. She just replies, simply, "Maybe."  
  
Feng Min tries to prompt for more. "I know about Laurie, and Quentin, and Tapp..."  
  
"I've wondered about it sometimes," says Nea thoughtfully, fingertips at her chin. A sooty smudge immediately settles there. "But there are people here who really don't know about any of this shit. You know Bill? In _his_ world, the fucking _zombie apocalypse_ happened. An actual, _Dawn of the Dead_ kinda zombie apocalypse. He's the only one we know of from a world where that happened, and it seems unbelievable, but do you think that guy would ever lie? No way. We're all from Earth, yeah, but some of us have to be from different timelines, or even _realities_. Fuck."  
  
Feng Min nods slowly. She understands exactly the sentiment Nea is expressing. She tugs her jacket tighter around herself, tucking her hands into the sleeves. "Then..." She inhales. "Would you think, in reverse, that the same is true about the killers? That they're also from some time or place on Earth?"  
  
"Yeah, of course. You know that some of them are literally just _humans_ , right? Nothing gross or mutated or crazy. Regular people who I can only assume must've volunteered for this shit, because what the fuck?" Nea scowls. "That one from Tapp's world? The chick in the pig head. That fucking thing smells _so_ bad, ugh. I wanna projectile-vomit all down the back of her jacket when she grabs me. _Every_ time. She'd deserve it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure she's a regular person, and Tapp is confident he's IDed her. It's so fucked up."  
  
What Nea's saying makes sense, along with all of its troubling implications. Feng Min has a lot to think about. She feels like her head's about to explode, and that's not just because she keeps painfully remembering how it had felt to have the Doctor's static field take hold of it. When he'd crawled right into her brain, whispered right between her ears. _Spoken_ to her.  
  
_Regular people,_ repeats Feng Min in her thoughts. _Humans._  
  
Nea shuffles through the papers. She tugs a sheet free and hands it to Feng Min. "Here."  
  
Feng Min takes it with surprise. It's another charcoal sketch. This time, she identifies the subject right away: coming through the intense blackness at the center are the familiar talons of the Entity as it descends from the sky. Feng Min can see the little spines and cracks, and the sharp sliver-points of the tips.  
  
She has to admit that there is something extraordinarily beautiful about the sight of the Entity materializing a part of itself, even though the only time she really gets to look at it is when she's just about to die. She's never asked the others if they've thought the same thing, but she can't help but notice the unbelievable way it seems to pull itself together from absolute nothingness, rippling glowing magma patterns in the air around her before a glittering, chitinous shell grows around it, deepening to the blackest black she's ever seen. It's awe-inspiring, she surmises, in the way dying must be awe-inspiring. The way people describe the light at the end of the tunnel. How it had made them feel so peaceful and free, even though they were about to meet death.  
  
The attention paid to the details in the drawing makes Feng Min think that Nea has also found it hypnotizing at least once before.  
  
"Um, thanks," she says, after a pause. "What... do I do with this?" It's not as though she has a bedroom wall to put posters on any more.  
  
Nea shrugs. "I'm bored here all the time. I give away lots of sketches. Most people throw 'em in the campfire. Kind of like a good luck thing. I think it's cool."  
  
"Really?" says Feng Min, skeptical. "You wouldn't be offended by that?"  
  
"No," says Nea. "I did graffiti. A lot of it, before I ended up here. If I wasn't able to let my art go, I'd never be able to do it. My shit got removed and painted over all the time. So all I did was keep painting. Art is supposed to provoke a reaction. Nothing draws attention like a beautiful mural. Graffiti demands to be seen." She nods her head towards the campfire. "I don't think the Entity cares about them for offerings, but you might as well get in on the tradition."  
  
A little smile brings a twitch to Feng Min's lips. She grasps the drawing tighter, looking down at it. "The details are pretty good," she admits.  
  
"Yeah, I've got those fucking claws memorized," says Nea. Feng Min detects a strange but somehow understandable bit of pride in her voice.  
  
"Are those supposed to be claws?" she teases, guessing that it might be okay to venture a cautious joke with Nea. "I thought this was a picture of a tree."  
  
Nea's smile disappears, but her eyes are still squinted in amusement as she says, "Then get your vision checked."  
  
Feng Min hums at that, at the mild way Nea says it — that _has_ to be a positive reaction — and motions with the paper in her hand. "Thanks," she says.  
  
She waits a little while before she tosses it into the fire, poring over the details again. The mottled patterns over the hard exterior. The spines. The deliberately extending razor tips. Eventually, looking at it makes her start to feel a sort of sad hollowness over the fact that she might never learn why any of this is happening to her, and then she suddenly thinks she understands why Nea prefers her art to be temporary, a flash of emotion, both insolent and utterly resplendent before it's gone forever. That's what's on Feng Min's mind as she crumples the ragged paper up into a ball and, beside Nea's approving smile, drops it into the flames.  
  
_For good luck,_ she thinks, watching it burn.

   
  


Although Feng Min keeps thinking about it — she can't use the word _hoping_ ; the feeling isn't like that — the Entity has yet to return her to that strange, snow-covered hospital. Several loops of trials on the farm grounds are starting to make her feel tired, despite the Entity's gift-slash-curse of inexhaustible alertness. The longer time stretches on without any sight of Léry's Memorial Institute, the more frustrated she feels. That feeling congeals itself in her mind and feels, somehow, important. Or urgent.  
  
_Why, though?_ she keeps thinking to herself. Why should she even bother trying to find out more about this world? About the Entity, about the other survivors, about the killers... Why? It's not like she's going to be given any answers. The Entity is not a god that hears prayers.  
  
But, still, the hospital won't leave her mind. The flickering screens. The mesmerizing grey blanket of static, before it had turned to pain— incredible pain savaging not just her brain but her mind itself, the very consciousness of her. Does she want to go through that again? No. She definitely doesn't. _But..._ the little voice in the back of her head keeps saying, _What if you can learn something?_ If Feng Min has a devil and an angel sitting on her shoulders, she's not sure which one's talking to her now.  
  
What then? She doesn't know. It's hubris even to think about it.  
  
Feng Min brings herself out of her depressive thought spiral when she notices Meg sitting by the campfire with a book propped up against her knees. Feng Min drops down beside her, crossing her legs as she sits. "What's that?" she asks. She knows that sometimes, on scavenging trips, the others manage to find old classic novels, yellowing dictionaries, or outdated newspapers, all irrelevant and seemingly chosen at random. It all seems like garbage to Feng Min.  
  
"Well..." says Meg, looking Feng Min up and down. She hums. "It's probably time you read it. You've been here long enough. This is Benedict Baker's journal. It's been here since before any of us arrived. We think he, or someone else who was here before us, left it for us to find." She holds up the small leatherbound book. It's received serious water damage at some point; the spine is falling apart. "Baker was someone who was in the same position we are."  
  
Feng Min is apprehensive. "Where is he now, then?"  
  
"We don't know. Maybe he figured out how to get back to the real world. Maybe he found a path to a permanent death." Meg shrugs. "He never wrote about it, or it's gone." She lets the book fall open on her knees, and the journal comes apart as though it were made of wet fabric, not paper. Feng Min can now see that entire sections are missing from the binding. "He's the one that named the Bloodweb. He wrote a little bit about it, and a lot of other things, too. But be careful when you go through it. This thing is really important, and it's the only one... If something happens to it, it'll be gone forever." Her fingers are knotting into the strands of her braids, her expression lost in thought, but then she holds it out.  
  
Feng Min is immediately nervous about accidentally ripping it or damaging it somehow, sliding farther back from the fire as she reaches to take the journal from Meg. She observes that the leather cover is successfully holding the basic structure together, and the pages come apart easily, letting her relax slightly. She goes over it carefully under the firelight, squinting at the handwriting and the few diagrams. Most of it is information the other survivors have taught her already, survival tips that come from repeated trials of torture, but there are more interesting things, too, like Baker's take on what he thought of the reasons for his existence in the fog, or what he thought of the Entity.  
  
_Trying to find some answers is one of the few things that keep me sane,_ reads Baker's journal at one point. Feng Min wonders if it had worked for him, because she's not certain it's going to work out for her.

_Léry's Memorial Institute_

There's a sudden stab of pain spiking down from the crown of her head the moment she reads the words. Feng Min exhales slowly to ride it out, squeezing her eyes shut for one difficult moment and swallowing as it fades to wariness, before she skims over Baker's notes. It's hard to read some of the handwriting where the ink has spread out into little veins.

_It’s a place where the human brain is turned into something unpleasant and broken. Electricity is everywhere and dirty tools are found laying around. The facility is a place where all methods are acceptable— as long as information is retrieved. Whether the 'subject' is alive after the procedure is not important._

Feng Min doesn't know what to think about what she's read. It's not difficult to believe, given the appearance of the place— its strangely barricaded and reinforced walls, the nontraditional variety of medical equipment. The eerily repetitive and useless rooms. The cryptic symbols seen in every hallway. The endless monitors and cameras and the feeling of being constantly, eternally watched, viewed from the inside out, no part of you unexposed. But where had Baker gotten this information? She doesn't see any notations about where he had learned it. Was it just a theory, or had he come across something concrete?  
  
The journal yields no further answers, nor clarification. After reviewing the rest, Feng Min returns it to Meg, watching as she carefully slips it into an etched wooden box which she pushes into a hollow on the underside of a tree, a spot perfectly worn away to fit a small, fragile hope.

   
  


Feng Min blanks out the moment she realizes she's in the hospital again. As the world re-illustrates itself in shape and color and form all around her, fading in from nothingness, the first thing she picks up is the faint call of static, and all at once, anything she might have been thinking about to prepare herself for being in the hospital again has flown her mind. Once she's grounded again, she's a little agitated with herself, hands shaking as she digs her nails into her palms, trying to get her thoughts straight as she kneels in a corner that has been reclaimed by grass.  
  
The static drones softly between her ears. Feng Min hones in on it, her mind latching onto its frequency. From this far away, the noise is merely an unremarkable buzz, inoffensive and easily forgotten. Soon, she thinks she's tuned her senses to the correct direction of the source. As she begins moving down the hallway, she picks up distant footsteps, and wonders who the other survivors are in this trial. She realizes that they have no idea what she's doing right now. _She_ has no idea what she's doing right now. She wonders what the other survivors would think if they knew she was ignoring the generators and walking past the totems because she wanted to see if the killer in this place would talk to her in her head again. Her reputation would probably be permanently, irreparably damaged.  
  
But she has to know. It feels like something's calling out to her, a great chasm that demands crossing. She _knows_ it sounds crazy. _That's because_ , Feng Min thinks, _it **is** fucking crazy._  
  
Even though she knows that continuing to advance towards the static is probably going to get her swiftly killed — why wouldn't it? — Feng Min continues to follow it, listening to the distant bangs and thumps of the other survivors getting generators up and running. The Entity makes its presence known early, claiming one of them down in a distant hallway. Although she can feel a slow warning throb starting in her head, it's not like last time, when the static had taken hold of her so suddenly. This time, the pain trickles in quietly, and as it comes, she can brace herself for it. Slowly. She's used to forcing herself to adapt to change. She can keep going, even if it's not in leaps and bounds any more. Bit by bit is more than she'd had going for her right before she'd woken up in this nightmare.  
  
The sea of static crests and swells. There's a strange sensation of it pressing in around her, applying gravity from her shoulders and head downwards and lending her limbs a weighted feeling.  
  
Feng Min knows she's entered the dangerous part of the Doctor's radius when three things happen: the first is that a heartbeat becomes clear over the static. The second is that she's now able to see the static itself dancing around the soles of her boots, little sparks of electricity licking up the sides. And the third is the Entity making a second appearance. She can hear a woman screaming very close by. It's hard to mistake the sound as anything but a death cry. Claudette, maybe? Meg? She barely has time to react or get a look before the Entity has come tearing ravenously through reality for its meal. One other person left, then. Aside from her. She realizes it hasn't been more than a few minutes since they had all arrived here.  
  
Crouching next to a soda machine, Feng Min picks up the sound of panting. It doesn't take much to place David. She knows it's him because of how incredibly loud he is when he runs and vaults. It's not his fault; the guy is built like a truck. She stands up, hopping to her feet as he dashes by her window, trailing blood. A sudden burst of static splits painfully between her eyes as electricity flickers up her stockings, and she sways, but she manages to both stay upright and keep her mouth clamped shut. The urge to scream is there again, but it's not strong. Yet.  
  
Typically, she'd just stay right here, watching from her hiding spot as another one of the survivors tries running the killer around. It's often not worth intervening; to do so, she knows, typically results in the loss of the helper's life. So Feng Min usually waits, slipping behind some cover or sneaking to the shadows. She doesn't mind being patient, waiting for the killer to walk away. Sure, she'd went and helped Laurie that one time, but that was only because she'd been absolutely certain it was a safe thing to do. At least, that's what Feng Min has convinced herself she thinks.  
  
But, today, she's changing strategies. She's going to move _towards_ one of the Entity's servants.  
  
Feng Min clambers through a window frame and uses the heel of her boot to kick one of the wheeled stretchers crowding the hallway. It makes a loud clattering sound against the wall, and, almost immediately after the commotion, electricity explodes at her feet, and she gets her eyes on the Doctor again as he steps around the corner, called by the racket. He takes notice of her immediately; luminous irises against black-hole sclera lock on her as he starts to laugh, swinging the brutal-looking spiked weapon in his hand. It's the same broken-radio sound as before; his mouth doesn't move along with it. It's still incredibly unnerving, she decides, but probably the least frightening thing about him.  
  
There's a dull thud from behind her. She can roughly gauge the distance, and guesses that David has made his way to a safe area. She can't turn around and confirm, because she can't risk taking her eyes off of the Doctor. She's anchored by the same kind of paralyzing terror she'd felt the first time she encountered him, and she knows that how she proceeds from here is important, but suddenly she's not sure at all of what she's doing. She doesn't know if she's forgotten his face — it feels like it's been forever since she was here last — or if it's that he's just _that_ alarming to look at, but it has her incapacitated. She takes a step back, and then another, and he starts moving towards her again. Just two steps.  
  
The Doctor isn't in any rush, she realizes, and that's what steels her as she gropes her way backwards, feeling along the wall, inching step by step down the hallway. He appears content to keep pace with her for the moment, laughing every time she has to bite back a cry when another deluge of static overwhelms her, as if he's amused by her reactions. The pain in her head is rising, gradually approaching a rapidly shrinking limit.  
  
Like before, the pain is accompanied by a thickening of the static field around her. The noise twists and sparks down her spine and into her fingertips, making muscles all over her body twitch and shake. She takes a shallow breath when the urge to scream lashes her tongue again, and tries to focus. Where had she heard his voice? In her head. She needs to listen harder to the static. Get inside the static the way it's getting inside of her. Push back the agony.  
  
There's a cold sweat on the back of her neck. Her blind path backwards has taken her — and the Doctor, by consequence — into an unusual room, one she hadn't seen the first time she'd come to Léry's Memorial Institute. It's some sort of office. She notes tall bookshelves, but that's about all she gets a good look at between the tension of trying to stay at least several feet in front of the Doctor and the pain threatening to overwhelm her mind and render her defenseless again.  
  
_Concentrate,_ she thinks. She just needs to listen for it—  
  
The edge of something hard hits her hip. She reaches behind herself and feels for it. A desk? She stumbles around the side of it, leaning into it to keep herself steady, watching as a torrent of electricity rolls down the Doctor's body like rainfall and ripples outwards on the floor, shocking up under her skin when it reaches her.  
  
Awareness of her limited options for exiting this room only comes to her once she's effectively cornered. Feng Min goes still, wobbling, and, while panting — it's hard to breathe; her head _hurts_ — she makes a great, struggling effort to say, "I heard you. Last time. I—... heard. You." She manages to spit the last three words out through clenched teeth.  
  
There's a silence. The Doctor's on the other side of the desk, looking in her direction as if contemplating her. The effort of managing that one sentence has taken all of the oxygen and the energy out of her. Feng Min's body goes involuntarily pliant, and the pain in her head suddenly blasts to entirely new levels. She grabs at her head, dropping to her knees, and cries out.  
  
She hears the sound of the Doctor's heavy footsteps beneath the noise, before she's cloaked in his shadow. She feels him stop when the tip of one of his shoes presses into her calf. She looks up towards the ceiling, squinting against the static and the blinding light of the electricity falling off of him. She's hardly noticing, at this point, when it stings her arms or legs or even her face. Everything is pain right now, an indistinct effluvia of every kind of hurt.  
  
Just as Feng Min thinks that this venture really was truly foolish and pointless — that maybe she hallucinated the first time, and she's not going to hear him answer — she hears it. That voice, again, existing, somehow — impossibly — in her mind like it had always been there, dormant, only awaiting the time when instinct would lure it out.  
  
[  You. What have you done? ]  
  
As toneless as last time, both fading and sharpening in volume and clarity from syllable to syllable. She can't even believe it. There's a loud thudding noise next to her head, and the static flares up loudly, making her shriek, before it suddenly evaporates enough to let her think and see again, a little bit. She sees that the Doctor has planted his weapon in the bookshelf beside her. The current extends down his arm straight into it, and it's vivid with energy. Feng Min tells herself not to move a muscle, even if she's concerned that one twist of his wrist would allow the Doctor to club her upside the head— a injury she's pretty certain she wouldn't be able to recover from on her own.  
  
Now that the noise has ebbed back, Feng Min realizes that he expects a response. That's the only reason she's not dead yet. The Doctor thinks _she's_ done something?  
  
"I— I _didn't,_ " she stammers. "I didn't do anything. I don't know why it's happening." Her voice certainly sounds wretched right now— it's strained from the exhaustion of the static saturating her brain. She'd thought maybe he'd done something to _her_. She knows none of the other survivors have ever experienced it. She's heard them talk about the excruciating, death-wish torture of the static and the madness that follows, but none of them have ever mentioned hearing a voice in it, much less the _killer_ 's voice.  
  
The Doctor merely stands there, as still as if he were part of the decor, turned to stone by her stare. But then he reaches down for her, his hand grabbing at her bicep.  
  
Instinct kicks in, and Feng Min screams, trying to push herself away across the floor. A strange sound comes from the Doctor — it's not in her head; she's pretty sure she's hearing it with her ears — that has a weird, choppy quality to it. She senses displeasure, but all she's thinking about is trying to get away from him, certain she's pushed her luck too far.  
  
All he does is jerk her up to her feet, albeit with a painful shock that bolts down the length of his arm, disappearing and reappearing into the muscle, ending its circuit at her right shoulder. She hisses with pain, twitching again, the muscles in her arm tensing in a way that makes the entirety of her spine start burning. And then Feng Min realizes that a second shock hasn't come. She tips her chin up.  
  
This time, the voice is quieter, the volume dialed down.  
  
[ Tell the truth, or I will extract it from this troubled mind of yours. ] At the tail end of this sentence, the Doctor's hand tightens on her arm. His hand easily engulfs the circumference of her bicep; she squirms as his grip turns painful. As terrified as she feels, Feng Min makes herself again stare at his face— the gruesome, immobile state of it. She at least wants to get a good look at him before he melts her brain again. All along the right side of her body, she can feel muscles fluttering beneath her skin, and it hurts.  
  
_Extract_ it. She doesn't want to find out what that means.  
  
"I am!" she gasps, and she can't help but try another ineffective tug away from his grasp. "I'm telling the truth."  
  
The Doctor's hand slides up her arm to her shoulder, shoving it back against the bookshelf to subdue her. Feng Min obeys this time, stilling, but mostly because it hurts to try to move.  
  
[  Then why would you seek me out again. ] It doesn't sound like a question— not when it's encased in the chaos of the static, devoid of emotion, slipping into her brain whether she wants it to or not. The Doctor leans in deeper over her, and her eyes start to hurt from having to stare into the blinding current running over his body. She can feel the pressure of his fingertips at her shoulder blade, hard enough to bruise.  
  
Feng Min doesn't know how to articulate an answer.  
  
"I had to find out," she says, with difficulty. "If... if I really heard you. Last time." As she says this, there is a noticeable brightening of the electricity. She hears the stilted laughter clip into the air again, and wonders once more where it comes from, or how he does it, or if he's even doing it consciously. Her eyes have glazed over with exhaustion. She doesn't know what he's going to do with her now. Probably throw her on the nearest hook.  
  
The laughter continues, picking up in volume, and then the voice in her head layers on top of it. Two concurrent voices from the same source. It's a little disorienting to hear the distorted laughter behind the flat affect. [ We'll see if you are being honest. ]  
  
The Doctor yanks Feng Min forward by the shoulder, causing her to stumble. He's reaching out to haul her over one arm, and she panics. _No, not again,_ her body screams at her in a sudden plea for survival. _Not again._ It never gets any easier, the terror of dying. She tries moving back again, her energy renewed by the fear.  
  
He's gotten a grip on her when the sound of the exit gates running power comes on. The Doctor jerks his head up, the current blazing, as David comes running into the room. Feng Min hadn't even heard him approaching; there's too much noise in her head.  
  
"Oi, _slaphead!_ " he bellows. "Yes, you!" With astonishing speed and force, David comes barreling towards them, taking a full-on body slam into the Doctor's side that immediately forces the killer to relinquish his hold on her. Feng Min doesn't need to be told to take the opening. She bolts for the door, stealing a look at David, who's running for the window again, sweat pouring down his face and blood soaking his jeans. She can tell that he's in a lot of pain. He barely makes it over. Feng Min watches the Doctor's twitching fingers miss his ankle.  
  
She holds her breath and runs before he turns around to fully register her absence. It doesn't take long. She no longer hears the voice in her head, but she's not surprised that she doesn't any more. There's just the heartbeats, and the unsettling laughter, and the _static._ She keeps running, even though every single muscle in her body aches.  
  
It feels like she's been stumbling down identical hallways for an eternity with the heartbeats pressed against the pulse in her neck when she locates the glowing red sign for the exit. She sees David standing there; he's waving urgently. Feng Min sprints out of the doors into the snow with the Doctor laughing in increasing, nightmarish hysteria just steps behind her.  
  
"Come on, now!"  
  
David leaps out from the border line between the hospital and the campfire right in time to take Feng Min by the arm and pull her through the barrier with him. It's in the same spot the Doctor had grabbed her so tightly, but she doesn't mind the pain this time, because it means getting past the gates. "Thank you," she wheezes. She can hear the Doctor's laughter fade off behind them, closed out by the darkness that undetectably shifts and reassembles into the familiar features of the campfire, restoring them whole again, their wounds and bruises wiped away, always with a new trauma fresh in their minds.  
  
What's _not_ familiar is what just happened at the hospital. As Feng Min sinks down next to the campfire, a laugh, half-terrified, half-disbelieving, bursts out of her in the form of a gasp. She spreads her hands over her head, feeling blindly for the pain that had, moments ago, felt like it would kill her. It's gone, and so is all of the noise. She can hear the murmur of conversation from the others around her, but it's a low drone she can't focus on.  
  
She can't believe what she's gotten away with. She'd known even before she'd tried it that it was probably a bad idea. What had happened just reinforces that— she knows she'd _barely_ missed being killed right then and there. She can't do something that risky ever again. She can't go looking for the Doctor during a trial— next time, there might be nobody around to save her. She can't forget that all of them — every single one of the killers — seem to have some kind of imperative to kill during trials. Aside from that, what is she hoping to learn or get out of this? If any one of the others learns what she's up to, they're going to think she's not only untrustworthy but completely insane. They won't understand the compulsion driving her to learn more. Why she feels she should keep digging. There's no way she can risk it again during a trial.  
  
But there _is_ one thing she can do. It might be just as dangerous — there's no way it won't be — but she knows that there's a way to find the killers outside of the Entity's torture games, and, soon, she makes the decision to pursue it.  
  
"Jake?" Feng Min calls out, taking a deep breath as she approaches him by the tree line. Her adrenaline's racing, even though there's no longer any threat around her. She hopes she doesn't regret what she's about to do. Some decisions — she knows all too well — cannot be unmade. But intuition tells her that this choice, like many of the others she's made recently, has already been determined for her. "I think I'm ready to go into the forest."


	4. monitor and abuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! The comments I've received have got me _so_ excited about writing this fic, you have no idea. I have lots of things planned up ahead and I'm going to try to maintain my momentum. Thank you so much for caring about this fic that I debated not even posting :') I hope you'll stick with me as we go along. Please feel welcome to continue sharing your feedback. It is so important and motivating for me!
> 
> I also wanted to note something: if you are having trouble reading the Doctor's 'speech'/telepathy, whether it's from font not showing or the way the greys shift from light to dark or maybe the font changing exacerbates or starts reading comprehension problems (I have it too- it's why I can't read fic on FFN lol), you can turn it off by clicking 'Hide Creator's Style' at the top of the fic. This will preserve the brackets, so you'll know when he's using telepathy, but it will revert the text to the default AO3 font and color. I only found out about this feature recently myself, so I thought I should mention it just in case someone needs the info to make the fic more accessible and readable for them.

Feng Min dreams about defining the darkness. Being able to interpret the way it all comes together and then slip between its sutures. Letting her mind ride the whispers far beyond this threshold of unconsciousness. There is something soothing about it, tonight, in the way it lures her in.  
  
Something brushes against her. Feng Min reaches out in the black, blindly grasping for it, and then her hand slips _through_ something, and there is an instantaneous, immense pain. She's never felt that in the Bloodweb before. She draws her hand back, and—  
  
—and wakes up next to the campfire, right by Meg, who seems to be asleep herself, slumped against Claudette. Feng Min can only register her surroundings for a moment before she realizes that it still hurts. She turns her hand over and sees a bright red sweep along her lifeline, like a burn. She isn't sure if she should feel surprised or not; nothing that happens within the nightmare makes sense, so it _all_ makes sense, in some backwards way. The laceration throbs, radiating waves of pain. Is she supposed to treat it? Should she wake Claudette up?  
  
As she stares at the wound, grimacing, she sees something briefly glimmer in the air — little specks of light so intense they make her eyes water — and watches with incredulity as the burn begins smoothing itself out, reassembling and melting into soft skin again. When she eventually falls back asleep, she doesn't dream.

   
  


Feng Min quickly learns what Jake means when he tells her, _You can't get lost in the fog._ That's because, eventually, every place in the fog leads back to the campfire. It doesn't matter which direction she picks, or where she intends to go. The outcome is always fixed. As Feng Min begins trailing Jake on several excursions into the forest, she comes to a cautious acceptance of how unnatural it feels, displaced from both time and space.  
  
The endless, looping wander of the thick brush leads them where it will, and they have to make do with what it provides before the fog comes again. Scavenging is a lot easier said than done— the killers aren't confined to a single campfire; they have lives that exist parallel to and separate from the survivors'. Jake tells her that, usually, they stay in their own realms. Most of the time. If they're really lucky, they'll find an area of the fog abandoned, which gives them a little more time to hunt for tools and medical supplies and other useful things. It's also best to travel in groups— just as in trials, it's risky to be too far away from an ally.  
  
Claudette's come along with them tonight, and they've been wandering the forest for quite a while with no sign of an exit. Feng Min mostly listens as her two companions fill the dead air with conversation.  
  
"Believe it or not, I'm Canadian," Claudette says as they pick their way through the trees.  
  
Jake looks amused. Feng Min gives him an uncertain look, then glances at Claudette, and then back at Jake, who isn't being any kind of helpful. "Um, yes, I believe you," she says, and then stumbles when her boot catches on a rock. Claudette reaches out to steady her. It's dark out, and hard to see through the fog; Jake's been trying to conserve the flashlight battery.  
  
"You okay?" Claudette asks, her hand patting Feng Min's shoulder.  
  
"Yeah," says Feng Min, trying to suppress her frustration. She slips out from under Claudette's arm and feels her way back onto the trail, her eyes searching for the back of Jake's green coat in the dull glow of the fog. Traversing the fog feels like being blinded and placed into a labyrinth and then instructed to navigate it. It's intensely disconcerting.  
  
"He's right ahead of us," says Claudette reassuringly, taking a couple of hops over a trio of logs to catch up on the left.  
  
Feng Min feels a little embarrassed that her displeasure is so evident, and she gives a listless half-shrug. "I'm still getting used to the hiking."  
  
Claudette zips up her jacket as she walks. "Jake?" she calls out, flicking her flashlight on. Soon, it lights him up between the trees.  
  
"Sorry. I didn't realize you fell behind," Jake says, raising an arm to shield his eyes.  
  
"It's easy to get separated in here," says Claudette, mostly to Feng Min. "We're not quite at the point of having to tie ourselves together, though."  
  
Feng Min laughs uneasily. She's starting to feel wound up and on edge; she isn't sure how long they've been roaming the fog through this wood of infinite acres, trying to reach a destination. Doesn't matter which one. Just a destination. It's not like they really have a choice.  
  
"You said you're from Canada, right?" she asks finally, seeking a distraction to anchor her nervous mind to. The dead silence of the fog feels implicitly threatening in a way she cannot rationalize, but still dreads.  
  
"Oh, right. Yes," says Claudette. "Montréal. But I moved to Toronto when I began at the university there."  
  
Feng Min is curious, so she asks, "What were you studying?"  
  
"I was in their plant biology program," Claudette says. "So my life involved a lot of homework, mostly. That, and my computer."  
  
"You too?" says Feng Min, and she doesn't know if she feels more yearning or more grateful that she no longer has access to technology. Constantly consulting her phone, wondering what was being said about her. Trying to maintain a perfect record, one buffed to a luster. 48-hour stretches in front of her monitor to grind before competitions. Nobody had made her do any of those things. She'd done them to herself.  
  
Claudette nods. "Whenever I was done in the library or the lab, I'd catch the bus home really late, and then I'd stay up even later studying, then I'd go on my computer and end up getting about five hours of sleep... and that was what I did every day, mostly. It was... a really long time ago, at this point."  
  
There's a bittersweet taste at the back of Feng Min's throat. "I completely understand that," she murmurs, but it's so quiet that the fog swallows it up.  
  
"And then _this_ happened," Claudette continues. "I was brought here."  
  
"Do you remember how you got here?" Feng Min asks. She's heard a few stories from the others of how they'd found themselves in the Entity's realm, but she still can't remember much of her own experience. She just knows that she passed out somewhere on Earth and woke up in Hell.  
  
"I was really tired that night," Claudette says. "I'd been working with these plants that my professor had brought from his homeland. They were some of the only specimens left in the world. But they produced a really sticky sap, and it was all over my clothes. I was so tired that I just became completely lost trying to find my way home. I only figured out that something had happened to me when I realized that I wasn't covered in sap any more. And then I found the campfire."  
  
Jake speaks up for the first time in a while. "I thought I was totally alone. When you showed up, I almost ran away." It's obvious that he's kidding.  
  
"I think I've changed a lot since I first came here." Claudette is smiling.  
  
"You have," says Jake seriously. "Like a completely different person."  
  
Claudette turns to answer Feng Min's questioning look. "It was always hard for me to stand up for myself or... or even make friends. But... here... there's something that only _I_ can do. I have skills that can help everyone. I've been here for so long now that it comes naturally to me. That's an important responsibility."  
  
Feng Min has a slowly dawning new sense of respect for Claudette. "It is," she says. Her mouth feels dry. She presses her tongue to the back of her teeth.  
  
"I think this place made me stronger," says Claudette. "Is that a strange thing to say?"  
  
"No." Feng Min keeps her face neutral and stares straight ahead into the fog. Tries not to think too hard about the fact that maybe she's not getting stronger but continuing to fissure.  
  
"I think most of us feel the same way," suggests Jake. "My life wasn't that different before I got here. So I just kept going and doing what I was already doing. Adapting." He looks pensive. "I know how to keep myself alive here, and I know my enemy. Hope the Entity's listening in on that one." He tilts his head back, staring up into the thick canopy, so dense it's sheathed the moon.  
  
Feng Min sincerely appreciates the sentiment, but she's not about to go testing the Entity herself. "What do you mean, your life wasn't that different?"  
  
"I lived in a place that looked a lot like some of the places here. Lots of trees... worn down and abandoned. I went there because it was the only place I found where there wasn't anybody else," he says simply.  
  
That idea — running away to a place so remote a person could never be found — had often come up as a wishful-thinking scenario throughout Feng Min's life, especially during the period before she'd arrived in the nightmare. She'd wanted to run away from her failures and decaying opportunities and annihilated reputation. But that was impossible, so she'd settled for trying to slowly obliterate herself from existence, drop by poisonous drop.  
  
Feeling nauseated, her hand floats to her abdomen, pressing there. "Why did you...?" she says, strained.  
  
Jake seems to intuit the rest of the question. "I'd come to the conclusion that my parents had had me for a reason. A chosen purpose. And I didn't want it, so I grew up feeling guilty about my own existence. It was like I owed them my life because they'd given it to me." Jake doesn't sound bitter or sad— just steady. "And once I was an adult, they wanted it back."  
  
"That's not easy," says Feng Min, not knowing what else to say; she's never been good at this kind of thing, at trying to meet people in the middle emotionally, and, besides: she's a stranger to her own parents, too. She steals a look over at Claudette, who doesn't look particularly surprised by any of the details Jake has shared; she's probably heard this before.  
  
"It is what it is," says Jake, with plain, flat acceptance.  
  
"What's your story?" asks Claudette suddenly, tilting her head in Feng Min's direction. The fog has noticeably begun thinning out, taking on a translucent quality as they move through the trees.  
  
Feng Min struggles to come up with a way to abbreviate her history that's both truthful and free of the ugly details. She reluctantly says, "I spent most of my time practicing." A while ago, but still. "I had a following online. I'd stream a lot, too. Sometimes I wouldn't get a chance to go outside for days."  
  
"A following?" Claudette is tucking her flashlight away now that the visibility is improving.  
  
"I had around two hundred thousand followers on Twitter. I didn't even use it that much. I'd just let my streams and competition results speak for themselves."  
  
"That's a lot of people," says Claudette, astonished. "How did you become involved in that kind of thing?"  
  
Feng Min wants to point out that her following is pretty small compared to that of a lot of her male — and often lesser skilled — peers, but what's the use? It's all gone now. "I used to sneak out of my parents' house and stay up all night at Internet cafés practicing, because they'd taken away my computer at home. They hated it. They thought I was making a huge mistake." She wonders what they'd say if they ever come to learn that they were right. "I left home the minute I turned eighteen. I don't think they've ever accepted it, even though I went pro almost right away."  
  
"But you did it," says Claudette. "That's an accomplishment."  
  
"Yeah," mutters Feng. "Anyway, I was... I lost a competition because I was burning out, and then I ended up here." It's an egregious abridgment of what had actually happened, but she can't bring herself to even let the words take form in her mind, much less leave her mouth.  
  
When they're eventually brought back to the campfire, they learn that there's a new person there— a young blonde woman with an intricate tattoo down one arm. Feng Min startles herself when she realizes that she's been here longer than at least one other survivor now. She's got seniority. It's not a good feeling.

   
  


When Feng Min comes to in the Gideon Meatpacking Plant, the first thing she takes in is the revolting smell. It's something she's never smelled anywhere but in this particular realm— a sickly-sweet, festering rot of meat and iron is all over the place. She lifts her arm to her face, burying her nose in her sleeve as she gets a look at her surroundings. She's listening for the Pig, but detects no heartbeats. Still, she's on her guard, walking slowly and carefully across the grimy floor.  
  
The cramped and chaotic layout makes it obvious that she's in the lower level of the factory. Feng Min brushes past what looks like a stockroom — it's got neat arrangements of boxes wrapped in tarps and labels, as though waiting to be shipped out — and approaches a set of stairs when she hears a whisper. She turns.  
  
It's the new girl. "Kate?" says Feng Min uncertainly. She hopes Kate doesn't intend to cling to her side throughout this trial. It's going to be hard enough to survive the Pig and her traps without a frightened new survivor trailing her.  
  
As it turns out, Kate isn't there to impede her. "Did you want this?" she asks, and it sounds like it takes her a bit of effort to keep her voice quiet. She's holding out a small grey toolbox. "Brought a flashlight with me, and I can't carry 'em both." She smiles gleamingly. Feng Min is genuinely surprised that she seems so composed. She's pretty certain that Kate's only experienced a few trials so far.  
  
"Um... thank you," she replies, for lack of anything else to say. Kate gives her a little wink and a click of her tongue before she's striding down the hallway, her blonde hair flying. Feng Min is grateful for the toolbox; finding generators takes a while in the plant, so it's always better to have something on hand to fix them quicker.  
  
She's located a generator and has gotten halfway through her objective when the heartbeats abruptly amplify. Feng Min freezes, hands going still against the machine, listening. From the right? No, she's pretty sure they're coming from right above her head. There _is_ a stairwell nearby, but it's in the next room over; she considers it, indecisively wobbling between finding a preemptive hiding spot and continuing her work.  
  
Footsteps close in from around the corner. Feng Min looks up to see Meg, who looks raring to go. "I passed Kate," she says, leaning in so Feng Min can hear her. "Nea's here, too."  
  
"And the Pig." Feng Min can still hear her heartbeats, right above their heads; she knows Meg can hear them, too. Wryly, she adds, "It's a girls' night out."  
  
Meg gives a loud, rattling snort through her nose, and then nearly slaps herself in the face as she stifles herself. "Stop! Don't make me laugh!" she whispers harshly, looking up towards the ceiling, then across to the wall, where one of the Pig's puzzle boxes sits. It seems to sober her a little. "I'm heading upstairs. I think that's where Nea went."  
  
Feng Min nods, and in a flash, Meg's loping towards the stairwell. As soon as she slips out of view above, the Pig's heartbeats abruptly change direction. Feng Min has no problem with that; she's glad to get back to work on the generator.  
  
Once she has it up, she begins the nerve-wracking process of trying to locate another one. She takes a shortcut through the freezer, her boots cracking against the layer of frost on the floor. When she reaches the bathroom nearby, she finds Kate already working on the generator there. She's moving slowly, with the graceless hands of an amateur, but the generator doesn't look like it's about to blow or anything, and she seems grateful when Feng Min kneels next to her to help.  
  
As she gets to work, sifting through the toolbox for a screwdriver, she hears heartbeats quickly approaching, and then a shout in a familiar voice— it's Nea, who's taunting the killer pretty recklessly.  
  
"Keep trying to hit me!"  
  
The heartbeats and footsteps come closer. Feng Min realizes they're headed in their direction just as Kate does. They exchange a look, and Feng Min has no idea what to do, or any time to decide, before there's a loud crashing sound from above — something must have been pushed over — and then Nea comes dropping through the opening in the bathroom ceiling.  
  
Kate sprints out the door. Feng Min stays only long enough to see Nea manage to catch herself and spring back to her feet before she abandons her task to hide around the corner. The Pig isn't far behind, swinging herself over the ledge. There's an indistinct kind of sound coming from beneath that mask of rotting flesh— maybe shouting, but it's impossible to make out the words. If there _are_ any words.  
  
Feng Min tenses as Nea goes flying past her, and prays that the Pig won't notice her. She doesn't; she seems pretty devoted to her current target. Feng Min gets up again and moves back towards the bathroom, but then a loud shout makes it clear that the Pig has become tired of letting Nea run around and injured her. She goes rigid when she realizes that they're headed right back her way. There's a sort of closet nearby, and she steps inside and presses her back to the wall as Nea circles the killer right back around to where she'd just been standing.  
  
Something solid hits the floor with a loud thud, followed by the sounds of a struggle. "Hey— let me go!" Nea's shouting. It sounds like they're right on the other side of the wall. Carefully, Feng Min leans out from the doorway to get a look.  
  
Neither of them notice her. They're grappling, and Nea's putting up a pretty good fight, but it's obvious that she's losing. The Pig has her pinned, sitting on top of her chest, blade extended and poised to pierce her throat. Nea's got her hands locked around the Pig's wrist, but her strength is clearly fading; her arms shake with the effort of trying to hold the killer off.  
  
The Pig grabs at Nea's face, but with a wild kick of her legs, Nea manages to get enough leverage to shove her palm up under the killer's chin first. Feng Min hears the blow, and then watches, to her great shock, as the Pig's mask is dislodged, falling to the floor.  
  
Tapp had already identified the Pig to the others. He'd explained that he was from the same world, a detective, working on a case that involved her somehow. That's the most Feng Min knows. The important part is this: the Pig is just a human woman. She'd known that already. But actually _seeing_ her like this is another thing entirely.  
  
With the mask off, the Pig — Tapp had called her _Amanda_ — looks like any one of them. She's a woman with long brown hair and pale skin, and that's about it. There's nothing unusual about her, apart from her wildly frantic expression. Even as she violently subdues Nea now, she looks so much less monstrous.  
  
" _Bitch!_ " Amanda shouts, and there's nothing out of the ordinary about her voice, either. She gets a knee on Nea's chest and roughly jerks her head up by a fistful of her hair before she snaps the trap shut around Nea's head. "That'll keep you busy for a while," she says in a voice so shaken Feng Min wonders how she remains composed. She recognizes anxiety within the woman— within one of the Entity's killers. She watches as Amanda — the Pig — grabs for her mask and slides it back on before squaring her shoulders and dashing up the stairs at the sound of a generator above them overloading. Nea remains slumped over on the floor, groaning.  
  
Feng Min emerges as the Pig's heartbeats fade. When Nea spots her, she shakes her head from side to side. It's a slow motion, laborious; the heavy iron traps really impede movement and vision. Feng Min has learned that the hard way.  
  
Nea's trying to say something, but the mechanism locked around her jaw makes that an impossible task. She looks angry. Feng Min feels a little helpless, unable to comprehend her body language. She gets Nea to sit still to bandage the wound on her leg, and then she helps her up, tilting her head when Nea tries to say something else.  
  
"I can't understand you," she says, looking distractedly up and down the hallways.  
  
More groaning from Nea— this time in exasperation. She motions towards her face, pointing at her eyes, and then flattens her hand and lifts it to her forehead as if examining the horizon.  
  
"Oh," says Feng, understanding now. "You want me to spot you?"  
  
An urgent nod from Nea, whose shallow breaths sound all the worse for the jaws clamped in between her teeth. She begins heading towards one of the puzzle boxes before Feng Min can tell her whether or not she'd like to go along with the plan. But she does, and she doesn't complain, because she'd been standing in that closet watching as Nea had gotten hurt, so she supposes she owes her that much.  
  
The puzzle contraptions — someone had called them 'Jigsaw boxes' once, but she's not sure what that means — are difficult to use, and distracting. It's almost impossible to keep an eye on your surroundings while trying to blindly feel if the key you need is inside. It would be a much easier task if the insides of the boxes weren't lined with blades.  
  
Nea gives a muffled grumble, apparently unenthused about sticking her hands inside, but when another generator comes online with a resonating fire-up sound from above, the timer begins ticking. They exchange a look, both knowing that it means Nea only has two and a half minutes from here on out to find the key. Appearing to overcome her hesitation all at once, Nea plunges her hands into the machine. The trap absorbs her cry of pain.  
  
Feng Min moves in uneasy circles, listening to the faint call and response of the heartbeats upstairs. She knows it won't be long until the Pig comes back to check around the puzzle boxes, and she jumps a little when Nea staggers back, ripping her hands free of the holes. Blood flows into her left palm, and she shakes her wrist in discomfort, causing it to streak down to her elbow.  
  
"You didn't get it?" Feng Min says, strained. Nea shakes her head _no._ "Okay. Next point." She's trying not to really look at all of the red— so much red, splattering everywhere. But still not even close to how much she knows is really in a human body. The thought makes her blank out for a moment, and then she snaps back to attention, telling herself to focus. "I think I saw one back where I started."  
  
The persistent beeping of the trap is loud, and it's definitely not helping them stay subtle as they walk the intersecting hallways. Nea lags behind, clutching her arm to her side, where it's staining her shirt a deep burgundy. Eventually — after a couple of wrong turns — Feng Min finds the puzzle box she'd been thinking of.  
  
The beeps pick up in frequency, along with the anxiety in the air. Nea's breathing heavily as she labors over the machine, but it's no good; she staggers back, lifting her bloody arm like, _What now?_  
  
"I think there should be one upstairs," says Feng Min tensely. "There usually is."  
  
Once they ascend, they can hear a generator droning, and then the sound of Meg calling out to someone. It's hard to tell if she's in distress or not. Nea doesn't even turn her head; she's going for the next puzzle box, tucked into a corner behind a forklift. Feng Min notices now, in the brighter lighting upstairs, that there's more blood on Nea than she'd originally thought.  
  
The heartbeats develop clarity as Nea works on the trap. Feng Min begins to get antsy. "Come on," she says, her throat tight. "She's coming this way."  
  
Nea's struggling, but she makes a sound of annoyance that at least lets Feng Min know that she's still alert to her surroundings before she kicks the side of the puzzle box, ripping her arms free. Feng Min squeezes her eyes shut before she turns, hoping to see the key in Nea's bloody palm.  
  
No.  
  
One more chance, then. The tinny beeping of Nea's trap is starting to reach critical levels. Feng Min impulsively pushes past Nea to get a look at the timer on the back.  
  
_Oh,_ she thinks.  
  
"Thirty-seven seconds," she murmurs, just barely.  
  
Nea takes off in the direction of the heartbeats, like she knows where the last puzzle box is. Her forearms have deep, bloody gouges where the boxes had closed around her. Feng Min tries to avoid the blood Nea's leaving behind on the floor, although she has half a mind to take the nearest detour back downstairs, because she knows the Pig has to be really close, at this point.  
  
And she is. Kate comes darting past a set of shelves with the killer behind her, and their path nearly collides with Nea's. The new girl looks up, seems to assess the situation, then attempts to keep the Pig's attention by barreling for a set of crates braced by pallets. It sort of works; the Pig clearly notices Nea, but she also seems to notice just how fast the trap is beeping — it's nearly an unbroken tone at this point — and she just makes a sound like a laugh from deep within the mask and continues chasing Kate. Feng Min, who has managed to remain unnoticed among all of this, catches up to Nea as she closes the gap on the final puzzle box. How many seconds left...?  
  
With a desperate sound, Nea jams her arms into the machine. Feng Min can see her quivering. And she can also see the timer on the back of the trap, can see how it's—  
  
It's—  
  
Nea seems to realize it, too. She casts a look over her shoulder at Feng Min, her eyes wide and terrified.  
  
Stricken, Feng Min turns her face away and buries it in her hands just as the timer expires and the trap is triggered with a loud snap and a sickening, wet noise that she's come to associate with bone and brain and all of the viscera accompanying. Something splatters on her sleeve. She hears Nea's body hit the floor after that, and then she turns around and forces herself to look.  
  
Nea's collapsed onto her front, concealing most of the carnage that has become the upper half of her face. A quickly spreading pool of blood seeps out from beneath her. Feng Min feels her face crumple, and although she knows that she's just going to see Nea at the campfire again, it doesn't make it any easier to face the mangled shell of her. _This_ is why she works alone.  
  
There's a sound from behind her, prompting Feng Min to look up over her shoulder. Kate's there, seemingly having gotten away from the Pig. She'd paid for it, though; Feng Min can see a nasty slash right across her clavicle that's bleeding freely.  
  
"What's..." Kate begins, and then her gaze falls upon Nea. "Oh," she gasps, her eyes going wide, and then liquidy. Feng Min watches her in a sort of dazed, stupefied way as the tears track down her cheeks, trying to remind herself that not everybody's like her— used to turning the other cheek when things get scary. Running away from reality. Pretending that the bad things just never happened. Kate looks whole-heartedly upset, and Feng Min thinks — pessimistically — that she's going to have to get used to seeing things like this, because crying's not going to help her here.  
  
And then the Pig jumps out from behind a rack of cardboard boxes, apparently just biding her time. Neither of them had heard her advancing heartbeat before she's pouncing for Kate, blade drawn. Kate doesn't react in time; there's this audible wet puncture sound, and she goes staggering back, screaming, her hands locked around the Pig's, trying to dislodge the knife that's buried right below her ribs. There's not much blood now, with the knife stuck in her, but Feng Min knows there soon will be, and now she's not thinking of much more than the word _fuck_ over and over.  
  
Later, by the fire, Kate's still got tears in her eyes, even though Meg's trying to reassure her that it's fine, that they usually don't make it out of Gideon, anyway, that they're used to none of them surviving it. Nea's already slunk off to her sketchbook as Kate insists that it's her fault, that her crying had led to the Pig's quick capture and sacrifice of the remaining three of them. When Meg looks to Feng Min, seeking some backup, she doesn't know what to say, so she pretends she doesn't notice. And much later, when Nea comes to sit near her, neither of them talk about how she'd exposed a killer's face. A killer's all too human face.

   
  


Feng Min begins to pursue the fog alone. She experiences a lot of near-misses, close calls, and fatal mistakes, each time waking up by the campfire before she would find time to sneak off and try again. She learns how far she can get away with going into the Huntress's forest. Memorizes the habitual path the Hag seems to walk over and over in the swamp. Practices how to scan the air for ashes in Springwood and move quietly enough so as to not awaken the Wraith. Knows when the Nurse is dormant — taking on a floating, eerie dead-sleep, head at the most unnatural angle — and when she's awake to circle her asylum, howling in agony. There's only so much that Jake and the others can tell her about surviving out in the dark mist: to really learn how to move in it, she has to _experience_ it.  
  
When she finally comes across her singular goal — the hospital — it's only because she'd fallen asleep on the forest floor, exhausted from searching and wandering. She wakes up on the ground in front of the doors of Léry's Memorial Institute, where the static seems to call her name.  
  
It's even more silent in the facility now that she's alone and there are no generators sending echoes down the halls. The noise itself is quieter than she's ever heard it, just a sibilant texture coating her brain, making every step feel uneven, like she's walking the surface of a great silver ocean.  
  
The static seems to lead her in a specific direction. Feng Min follows it mostly without thinking; at this point, she's so tense she can't get a full thought to bloom in her head. She's not sure what to expect. She knows that the Doctor is going to be every bit as dangerous now as ever, and it's not like she has any way to defend herself.  
  
When the carpet leading to the office comes into view, Feng Min can only think, _Of course_. She notices for the first time that there's a large reception desk there, as if whoever had used this office had been busy enough — powerful enough — to require that other people handle their schedule. It's empty and coated in a layer of dust so thick that she first mistakes it for snow. Beyond it is the office, casting yellowy light that contrasts noticeably against the blues and greys cloaking the rest of the facility. When she braces herself and steps into the doorway, the heart of the static is right there, sitting at the desk in a high-backed red leather chair, back turned.  
  
_I should leave,_ she thinks suddenly. _I should just run._ Forget this whole thing. Go back to the campfire and pretend it had never happened. Just put her head down and get through the trials one by one, the way she'd been doing it before. Her hands are shaking so hard that she has to cross her arms to get them to stop.  
  
He turns and sees her. There's no way to tell if he's surprised, of course; there is no allowance for interpreting his mood through his expression. She can tell, at least, that he doesn't seem to have expected her. As he abruptly stands from the desk — the movement's so quick it knocks the armchair over, causing a plume of dust to burst into the air, the chandelier lighting up individual motes like fireflies — she takes an automatic step back, all of the oxygen leaving her lungs.  
  
There's no sign of the weapon he's usually carrying. At least there's that.  
  
[  Why are  you here? ]  
  
"I..." Feng Min starts, and she's surprised that she can even get her mouth to work right now. He's just... _standing_ there, she realizes, staring at her with those strange, swirling-smoke irises. "I want to talk to you."  
  
The Doctor's hands come together, clasped in front of his chest. The wound-up laughing sound starts again from its unknown source, frenzied and violent. He shakes his head. The monotone voice he's projecting into her head sounds disdainful and mocking now. [  You've lost your mind.  I would know.  ]  
  
Feng Min's teeth sink into her lower lip. "I know," she says, faintly.  
  
He's still staring a hole right through her, his face unflinching, inert. [  I don't believe  that you  came only to talk.  ]  
  
Not knowing what else to say, and amazed that she's still alive at this point, Feng Min asks, "What do you think I came for?" She's no longer swaying on her feet, but although she holds her shoulders up, she can't make herself look right into his eyes.  
  
The Doctor tilts his head, and then there's a sudden frothing of electricity building up at the crown of his head, which then flickers down towards his hands. It's bright enough to cast strange, bluish shadows on the books lining the walls. [  We'll see, won't we? How would you like to go about this? Will you be compliant or not?  ] He reaches down to pick the chair up, as easily as if it were made of wicker instead of solid wood, and resets it with a clatter, turned towards her.  
  
"What?" Feng Min feels a tremble ripple down her back, her eyes darting to the cracked leather seat. "I..." She clasps her hands into fists, loosens them. She doesn't have much room to keep stepping backwards, and he's moving towards her in the doorway. "I don't... I don't know." What else is she supposed to say? _Yes_ or _no?_ Would does her answer even matter?  
  
More laughter, growing in volume. She still doesn't understand what's so funny, and barely keeps herself from snidely asking him.  
  
[  Then I will decide for you.  ]  
  
_Fuck!_ Feng Min thinks, knowing exactly what that has to mean. She tries to run, but it's no contest; he's on her in seconds, catching her around the waist so hard that it feels like she's been tackled. She shrieks, all the air forcing out of her lungs, and that's all she gets to do before a powerful shock of electricity soars through her body, making her convulse and choke in the Doctor's arms. He doesn't seem bothered by either the electricity or her physical state; he just gathers her up and deposits her in the armchair. As soon as he lets go, the circuit is broken, leaving her a weakened heap in the seat, but she doesn't get any recovery time before he's kneeling in front of the chair, his hand spreading out over the top of her head.  
  
He's paralyzed her, she realizes; she can't move any part of her body. Not even her mouth. Feng Min stares at him in panic, trying to will herself to get up and run, but she can't.  
  
[  You don't  like it, do you?  ] The voice in her head is not pitying. [  They usually don't.  ] She can hear his heavy breathing, the way it rasps out from between his teeth as he leans in over her. Every inhale sounds like a struggle. They've got that much in common now, at least.  
  
The Doctor brings his other hand to her head, and his fingertips press against her temples, keeping her completely immobile. She wishes she could scream or kick or spit at him right now, but she can only lay there and wait to see what he chooses to do with her, cursing herself in every way she can think of for being so stupid. Of course she'd come and gone running straight into another gory death. Another impulsive mistake in a life of impulsive mistakes.  
  
[  I'm going to pick your br ain a little.  ] The Doctor's fingers stroke the spot above her ears, and it'd be almost pleasant, if it weren't for literally everything else about the situation. Feng Min involuntarily arches from the chair, the muscles in her back seizing. She has no choice but to listen to every word he says, because he's speaking right into her mind. [  There's no need for conversation. I'll find the information I need. Please... relax.  ]  
  
Those ominous words could not have been more inappropriate, given the way the Doctor immediately follows the statement by sending a burst of static into her brain so heavy that she actually blacks out. And then something both transformative and torturous begins: suddenly, her mind isn't just filled with his voice but with a million different memories from any and every point in her life, flickering through her mind like kindling, stuttering kaleidoscopes of sights and sounds and feelings, transposing every associated emotion into a montage of formless and alien sentiment, the collective cognitive weight making it feel like her head's about to crack in two.  
  
She can't hear anything, see anything, think anything. The memories rush and swell until they make way for a few specific ones— the ones she'd avoided sharing with Jake and Claudette.  
  
Feng Min remembers everything; she'd be able to recall all of the details clearly even without the Doctor skimming her brain for them. She remembers underperforming at one tournament. How it had crushed her completely. It had been the first loss of an otherwise spotless career, one that had seen her filling stadiums worldwide, called a _prodigy_ and _the future of competitive gaming._ For the first time, she'd slipped. The criticism had come fast and heavy. Her own fans had begun sending her hate mail. Obsessed with the idea of brushing the incident off of her spotless record, Feng Min began pushing herself. Non-stop drills. A strict schedule. Practice, practice, practice. In her dorm all day with the lights off. Then she'd started drinking a little. Just to loosen up before team practices. It seemed to help. It really did. She'd sacrificed focus and sleep and thought she'd been prepared for a comeback.  
  
She lost at another event. Then came the anxiety. Crippling every part of her life. Making her into someone she couldn't recognize in the mirror. Knowing that the finals were coming up, she'd become desperate to get more practice hours in, and she turned to stimulants. They seemed to help up until the tournament had actually arrived, and during the final match, she'd had something like... like a _breakdown,_ is how media outlets described it. Running off stage in tears, hyperventilating. Shocked people in the stands whispering that her golden age was past. Then her manager had found the pills, and it was well and truly over.  
  
The memories continue to unfold into a litany of desires and regrets. Wishing people knew how she felt. How much it _hurt._ Her whole soul. Her heart. It hurts even now to remember, especially like this, being forced to face it. Maybe it'll always hurt. She's afraid of that. The humiliation and the shame following her like a shadow. The explosive self-destruction that had followed after the publicization of her dismissal had seen her entire life fall down around her. Thinking that she could still trust her teammates, she'd let one of them take advantage of her vulnerable state, and after he'd had his fill of her, he'd turned around and taken an interview decrying her as 'unstable.' Tortured by the thought of the news reaching her parents and too afraid to face the fans who just wanted to know how she was doing, she broke contact with everyone she could, isolating herself in a lonely downtown apartment and turning back to her first love, alcohol. Going to bars to get blitzed, just to get to pretend to be a completely different person for a few hours. Saying _yes_ to whatever anyone asked of her, finding that her death wish often outweighed her fear. Unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar beds. Waking up and feeling hurt all over and not letting herself think about where the bruises had come from.  
  
She'd been turning catatonic, an observer in her own life, her reckless behavior coming to a head when the Entity had taken her. The only thing she can't remember is how it happened.  
  
Throughout all of this, she feels the Doctor in her mind, observing. It's a feeling that is somehow both sublime and violating.  
  
And then he brings her back.  
  
Feng Min gasps, her chest heaving. He's pulled his hands back, and so with it the electricity, but her body feels like it's run a thousand miles. She struggles to lift her head from where she's slumped over against the armrest. The Doctor's still kneeling there, watching her.  
  
[  So much self-inflicted suffering. You're sick.  ] He delivers this message with no inflection. [  Most of you are. You  wouldn't have been brought here otherwise.  ] He lifts his hand, where little flashes of light glide from one finger to another. [  I can cure you. Take away your pain as though it never happened. I can do that if you will tell me what it is you've done to be able to hear me.  ]  
  
His voice is almost hypnotic, a pleasurable hum in Feng Min's mind compared to the agony of the forced memory recall, but she knows that this tempting offer is just a persuasive lie.  
  
"I... haven't..." Her head sways as she struggles to talk and sit up, still shaking. "...done... _anything._ That's why I'm... _here._ "  
  
There's a sort of buzzing sound from the Doctor; she sees that the current has stopped, and then started again. [  A more thorough analysis is needed, hmm?  Well, we have plenty of time to experiment... ]  
  
Desperate to come up with a delay on the spot, Feng Min says, "You're not g-going to learn anything by killing me." She manages to use the arm of the chair to pull herself into a sort of half-sitting position.  
  
[  Won't I? None of your number have ever achieved what you apparently have.  ] The Doctor stands. He's so tall that she has to tilt her face towards the ceiling to fully see him. He eclipses the chandelier so completely that the only features she can make out on his face are his glowing eyes. [  Further research will either answer or eliminate the problem.  ] It is obvious that he considers _her_ to be the problem.  
  
But then Feng Min slowly realizes that he hasn't actually attempted to hurt her again, which has to be a good sign, and so she forces herself to keep her voice steady and continues. "My brain's not going to give you any answers, because... because _you're_ the one doing this to _me._ " Her heart's beating so fast she feels dizzy.  
  
The Doctor's laughter starts up again, filling the office with eerie, humorless echoes, and a pulse of static floats through the air like snow, settling in sparks all along the desk's lacquered, dusty surface. [  You're an interesting one, aren't you? You know that I can just choose to hurt you. It would be much more convenient for me.  ]  
  
Feng Min nods silently, her gaze trained on his macabre face.  
  
[  And you are afraid of me.  ] A statement of fact.  
  
"Yes," she whispers.  
  
[  I have an appreciation for honesty.  ]  
  
The Doctor moves away from the chair, finally, roaming toward the bookshelf directly across from her, his tattered white coat absorbing some of the static falling off of his arms. There's a ladder propped up there that he pushes aside. Feng Min knows that she could get up and run right now — his back's turned to her — but she also knows that it would be a huge mistake; he'd be able to catch up with her no time at all in her weakened state, so she stays right where she is. If this is a test, she intends to pass it.  
  
He's still not saying anything, so Feng Min ventures, cautiously, "It's... it has to be like a radio. You're putting out a signal and I've... picked it up, somehow." She's watching him thumb through the books. Eventually he draws forth a slim, leatherbound one that he tucks under an arm as he turns back to her.  
  
[  Your theory is credible. But I don't agree with it.  ] He sets the book down on the desk and strides back over to the chair. Feng Min shrinks back against it instinctively, afraid of the very real possibility he'll get tired of her and hurt her again. Instead, he just stands in front of her, and in her head, she hears, [  You came alone. Why?  ]  
  
Feng Min's still tensed against the armchair, her knees pulled up to her chest, having realized that her feet don't quite reach the floor. "Because if I... I know that if I told them about any of this, they'd think I was insane." It's an understatement; when she thinks about what might happen if the others ever find out what she's doing right now, she feels sick.  
  
[  Why shouldn't I just keep you here? Why not open you up and look inside?  ] he asks, and now he leans over the chair again. She gets another idea of just how huge he is — there's no way any human man could be that big — when the chair groans under the weight of his hands pressing into the armrests. He's so close she's afraid she's going to get shocked just by proximity.  
  
Seeking an answer that won't betray just how despondent she feels, Feng Min says, unsteadily, "You won't learn anything from a corpse." She inhales. "You need me... alive. Conscious. That's how I'm hearing you now, right? If I'm dead, there's no... connection." She manages to meet his eyes, muster up the defiance to crack a smile. "You should already know that."  
  
If anything is going to make the Doctor snap, it's probably that, because she regrets saying it almost right away, but to Feng Min's surprise, he just laughs. There's even amusement in the voice that comes into her head. It's a cold kind of amusement — a pitying, superior one — but it's still there. [  I typically don't  take walk-in appointments.  ]  
  
Was that a joke? Feng Min doesn't know if he wants her to laugh. She tips forward a little, feeling the white-hot energy radiating off of his body. "You haven't killed me yet," she says breathlessly, knowing that she's pushing it now. "So you're thinking about what I'm saying."  
  
[  Is that what you think is happening?  ] The laughter cuts in, but it stops in the middle, like someone hit _pause_ on a recording. [  Tell me exactly what it is you want from me,  Feng Min.  ] He drums his fingers on the armrest, sending vibrations through the foam that cause unpleasant sensations against her back. Her eyes fall onto the sight of his hands and forearms; there are gouges and cracks in them, almost armor-like in texture, cables and wires fused through the muscle that pulse with energy. She doesn't ask him how he knows her name, because it's obvious; he'd just been in her memories.  
  
This is probably her only chance.  
  
"I... I want information," she stammers, and then her voice strengthens a little. "I'll... let you examine my brain. I'll come here outside of trials, and you can..." She doesn't know what word to use. "...look at it." Just saying it makes her stomach turn over. "I won't ask you to spare me during a trial, but... if I come here outside of one and you really hurt me, the deal's off."  
  
The voice takes on a cold, derisive edge. [ I wouldn't spare you even if you _had_ asked. ] But he then stands silently, staring at her. Considering, she hopes. The stillness in her head tells her that she is right, and that he knows it.  
  
[  What do you gain from this?  ] he eventually asks.  
  
"I want access to whatever you find," says Feng Min immediately. "Anything you figure out about this, or... or why it's happening. I want to know everything you learn from studying my mind." She presses her lips together and drops her gaze. She realizes that she's sweating beneath her clothes— a combination of nervousness and the heat coming off of him.  
  
The Doctor considers her. Feng Min knows that she's clinging on by one fragile thread— a mostly baseless hope that he's interested in an answer just as much as she is.  
  
[  You are smart, despite your obvious emotional issues,  ] he says. The compliment — is it a compliment? — surprises her. He waves an arm in the air, the laughter following the motion. [  I will not be granting you access to any of my other research. Do you understand?  ]  
  
_There's other research?_ is all Feng Min can think, blankly.  
  
[  I suspect I know  why you are looking for information,  ] he says, reaching out towards her head. She flinches away, and the laughter kicks up again, as though he finds her reaction hilarious. [  But there is nothing you could learn that would help you willfully leave this place.  ]  
  
Feng Min's staring at his hand, floating in the air between them, and she shakes her head. She knows there's no real chance she's going to escape from the Entity's nightmare, or that something so powerful would ever allow an attempt to go unnoticed. But if there is one lesson she's taken from her catastrophic career, it's this: learning the limits and boundaries of a game's environment puts you at a major advantage. She's not supposed to be able to hear the Doctor, but she _can_ , and she wants to know why. "I know," she says. "But I still came here."  
  
[  You did, didn't you.  ] The Doctor looks her over, and then he says, [  What you're doing is foolish.  ]  
  
She can only nod. There's a silence, then. Feng Min doesn't know what he wants her to do, or what she's supposed to say.  
  
[  I suggest you leave before I change my mind.  ] The Doctor's leaning against the desk, paging through the book he'd pulled free.  
  
Feng Min almost trips over herself as she gets out of the chair. She's immediately struck by vertigo, and is shocked at how sore her entire body feels, but she knows he's not joking about her needing to leave now, so she gets herself together and staggers towards the door, stunned by his response and by an unexpected non-violent conclusion to her rash plan. Does that mean he's agreed? To... whatever this is? This insane idea of hers?  
  
There's just one more thing. She pauses in the doorway, leaning weakly into the frame. "I don't know how long it'll be until I can find my way back."  
  
The Doctor doesn't look at her. [  Use your brain,  ] is all he says, and it's those words that stick with Feng Min later, when she's returned to the campfire, bewildered by the impossible thing that has just happened. When the others ask her where she's been, she doesn't know how to answer, but soon her fellow survivors have already moved on to other topics, talking animatedly over the fire, not knowing that one among them may have forged a deal with the devil.


	5. exposed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of my moving stuff is over with (the big stuff, anyway). Thank you for your patience with me. To make up for it, here's a chapter full of nothing but the Doctor. :')

If there's one thing Feng Min is certain that she'll never be able to get used to — more than the cyclic deaths, the bloodletting, the sacrifice process — it's the sense of displacement in both time and space. The others seem to see purpose in trying to keep some sort of record of time passing, but Feng Min has no interest in joining them. She's not ready to question what has happened to her, the impossible and fragile thing her reality has become. Even thinking about it makes her want to panic. She tries to distill it down to the simplest facts: she exists here, somehow, so her purpose is to keep existing.  
  
But she can't deny the concern that comes up among the survivors gathered around the fire pit. Dwight and Jake have been conferring over Dwight's makeshift calendar lately, and they've realized that nobody seems to have seen Quentin nor Laurie for a while. It's a block of time that doesn't really mean much to Feng Min, who doesn't keep track of the 'days,' but she sees why they're worried about it. Instead of settling against her usual log — just a little further back from the campfire, sort of between two others — she picks one closer to the campfire, wanting to hear the discussion.  
  
Tapp's got his thumb and forefinger pressed to his temple. He rubs the skin there, dragging the corner of his eye downward. He looks tired. "I would say at this point that it's probably cause for concern."  
  
Bill gives a nod in the detective's direction. He's frowning deeper than usual, and the harsh shadows of the firelight make it apparent. "Someone's got to go and have a look."  
  
Every person there knows what Bill means when he says, _have a look_. It means going into the forest and the fog and hoping it will guide you to the right place, the place where Quentin and Laurie might be. If they're still here at all. Feng Min isn't so sure. People are known, according to the other survivors, to come and go within the Entity's realm. Some of them stay for a long time. Some of them are only there for a little while. Some of them even come and go. Where they end up when they leave is a question no one seems to know the answer to, but they do know this: everyone eventually disappears.  
  
Feng Min watches as the others decide on who will go look for Quentin and Laurie and who will stay behind. She thinks about the last time she'd been into the forest. She's not really sure if what she did — what she'd gone and proposed in that hospital to the Doctor — is a delusion or not. It feels like it might have been a dream, something whispered directly into her mind in the sleep-adjacent rest the survivors permitted to have by the Entity.  
  
But she _knows_ that the Doctor had been inside of her mind. She'd felt it. Her mind is only hers now, and it feels so much quieter; that's how she knows that what happened was real. There's no way to forget what it had felt like to have her mind invaded that way. How excruciating it had been to endure. She'd gone over the events of the incident several times in her head, asking herself what she had done and why she hadn't learned from her past to get some control over her own self-destructive instincts. She keeps reminding herself that this pursuit will likely win her nothing but punishment, be it from the Entity or the good Doctor himself.  
  
But being aware of her own weaknesses doesn't equip her to overcome them. Feng Min knows she can't do anything but bow to her impulses. This time, she fixates on one thing: seeing it through. It's like an itch in her brain that can't be scratched. The possibility that she might learn something about the world around her, about one of the killers, or uncover something of use — something tangible, something _worth_ that taboo word, _hope_ — feels like an existential imperative. She _must._  
  
Feng Min wants to volunteer to assist, but she doesn't yet, hesitating. It's become exhausting to keep her guard up all of the time. The more she sees her relationships with the other survivors change — take on color, texture, light — the worse she feels inside, fearing ( _knowing_ ) that her capacity for pain isn't going to grow accordingly. She's heard their hopes and dreams and regrets. Learned the names of friends back home. Family members none of them would ever see again. It feels almost impossible to stop it, to not be forced to see the humanity in each of the people around her. Not when they are all coping with the same situation. The same Hell.  
  
She's still deciding if she wants to volunteer to help look — knowing the risk, that not all of them will come back out of the fog, that the Entity will interfere with them, separate them, call them to trial — when she _feels_ something.  
  
It's just a sort of tone at first, subliminal in nature, unacknowledged by her mind at present. But then her brain adjusts to it, and the frequency grows. Feng Min first mistakes it for a headache, the way it sort of buzzes in her skull, but then it becomes all too clear what it is. The static is definitive in nature, a black snow falling endless.  
  
Many of the other survivors have already disappeared into the fog. Feng Min realizes that the noise is coming from a specific direction. She must make an abrupt decision, but she feels entirely unprepared. Should she stay here at the campfire, watching out for which of them might return, or should she follow the signal?  
  
Feng Min is on her feet before she's really fully decided what she wants to do. She slips on her jacket and is already walking into the fog by the time she's thinking, _Should I really be doing this?_  
  
The static only gets stronger, stretching out ahead of her like a streak of light. She's not sure how long she walks through the black, silent trees. That the noise takes her to Léry's Memorial Institute is not a surprise; it is the promised conclusion.  
  
When the trees begin to thin out and the ground goes from dry and leaf-lined to damp and snow-covered, she comes to the realization that she now knows that the fog _can_ be manipulated in some way. At least, it seems, if there's an outside connection, the fog is navigable. Most importantly, she's learned that its rules can be penetrated and undercut, which opens up the question of what else about the Entity's realm could be manipulated in such a way. It's valuable information, even if she doesn't know what to do with it yet.  
  
Once Feng Min has crossed the threshold into the hospital's waiting room, the static thickens, filling the entirety of the building and the air around her, and the trail is lost among it. She tries to sense for it again, but there's nothing she can pick out to follow. It doesn't _hurt_ right now, at least. It doesn't feel like it's trying to stab into her brain. It's just _there,_ suffusing the hallways, coming out of the monitors and televisions, humming through waiting room after waiting room. It washes over her, trying to absorb her in its inertia.  
  
The impact of her boots on the broken tiles echoes off the walls as she begins searching. Every now and then, she encounters a spot with a hole in the roof, and she sticks her hand out to confirm, once more, that what is falling through the ceiling really is snow. The snowflakes touching down upon and then melting quickly against her warm palm feel real enough.  
  
It does occur to her that the Doctor may not be here, or that, worse, he might not want to be disturbed. Truth be told, Feng Min barely wants to be here, herself, but she feels that she _needs_ to be. The static's wavelength has dropped to synchronize with hers; she couldn't turn the dial off if she tried.  
  
If things do go south, she supposes she should have a plan. Last time, she'd gambled her safety entirely on the possibility that he might want to understand their apparent anomaly enough to agree not to hurt her. Outside of trials, anyway. But can she really trust the word of a killer, much less one with such a capricious manner? It's difficult to separate the jarring aspects of the Doctor from the fact that he can not only communicate, but... _coherently_ so. No mindless maniac, nor monster. She'd seen him maintain something adjacent to _neutral_ in her presence, if she ignores the fact that he had at first ambushed her and forced his power upon her, and had seemed to enjoy her fear of him all the while.  
  
So there's little she can do, Feng Min thinks, if he decides to hurt her, aside from stop coming around. But if she _can_ learn anything useful, even if the odds are slim, she's willing to try her luck.  
  
Soon, the quality of the static changes. It takes her a moment, pausing at the intersection of two hallways, but soon she realizes what's different; she can hear static with her ears, too, now. She tries to listen to it only, not the cloud in her head.  
  
It leads her to the operating theater. _No, wait,_ she thinks. It has another name in Baker's journal. _Treatment theater,_ she recalls. This distinction feels both important and ominous.  
  
She cautiously moves through the open entryway, reaching for a piece of rebar she spots leaning against the frame, ripped from somewhere inside the exposed walls. It's about two feet long, but it's got heft to it, and with some momentum, she might be able to stun the Doctor just long enough to get away if she really has to.  
  
The treatment theater has no doors, nor any sign that doors were ever installed in it at all. There are no empty hinges, no holes in the wood, no imprints. It's a place where watchful eyes seem to be mandatory.  
  
The static is strongest at the center of the theater. When Feng Min looks across the space, she sees the back of the Doctor's white coat. He's got one of the monitors pulled down slightly, and there's something like a panel attached to it. It's definitely not a keyboard, but it's not anything else she recognizes, either. He's picking away at the interface, staring unblinkingly into the screen. She looks over to see what he's watching.  
  
There's nothing on the screen. Just static. An unchanging, vibrating mass of it, black weaving into white into black into white. Just noise, incomprehensible and unchanging no matter what part of the interface his fingers manipulate. But the Doctor's looking into it so directly that she wonders for one strange moment if maybe _she's_ the one not seeing what there is to be seen in it.  
  
Feng Min doesn't know if he's aware of her. For a few anxious moments she wonders what the hell she's supposed to do, if she should interrupt him or wait for him to notice her or just try to leave.  
  
[  What am I supposed to think of the weapon you've brought with you?  ]  
  
The voice cuts through as casually as if they had already been in the middle of a conversation. She startles, going pale. It's only now that the Doctor turns towards her a little, one hand still resting upon the interface.  
  
Feng Min allows her grip to go slack, opening and splaying her fingers wide as the rebar goes clattering to the floor. She holds her palms out to him, as if saying, _See, there's nothing else._ "I'm sorry," she says automatically. It's a natural reflex, as natural as the fear that's got her heart revved up like a jet engine. She probably should have seen this coming.  
  
The Doctor makes a dismissive, swooping motion with his arm; there's the quality of a grin on his face, somehow, despite the fact that it's locked in its typical strained torture. [  You're welcome to pick it up again, Feng Min. I really don't care either way.  ] The way he uses her name so easily is unsettling, somehow, but it also makes her breath catch in her throat, and she's not sure why.  
  
His implication, however, is clear: he isn't worried about being overcome by her.  
  
Feng Min leaves the rebar lying right where it is and cautiously approaches. There's no point in picking it up again. She settles for standing right on the perimeter of the inner grating, the tips of her boots just at the edge of it on the side opposite of the Doctor and the monitor in front of him, careful not to get too close. The nearer she is to him, the thicker the static layer becomes, but it's not yet hurting her. Doesn't yet feel like it's trying to find all the channels into her brain, soaking into all of her neurons. It's just there, coming and going through her.  
  
The Doctor's looking right at her. He's got something in his free hand. She can't quite tell what it is, but it gleams against the light. It's caught between two of his fingers, sparking against the wires coming up through his tendons. It's hard to look at for long, between the blinding electricity and the grotesque way the cables intermingle with split flesh, melted together, one and the same. It all looks excruciatingly painful to Feng Min. She wonders if the Doctor can feel it. If he feels anything.  
  
[  Good girl. The smart choice.  ] He's nodding approvingly towards where she'd dropped the rebar.  
  
The words _good girl_ leave her momentarily speechless; she can't tell if he's trying to be condescending or not. What she _does_ know is that he's playing with her. She tries not to let her expression show that he's already started to get under her skin. Now's no time to lose her composure.  
  
"It wouldn't have worked, anyway," Feng Min finally says, forcing herself to look up at him.  
  
There's a strange and terrifying sort of pleasure in meeting his intense gaze. Like the thrill she used to get when she first picked up video games, hearing the music change and knowing an enemy encounter was right around the corner and then steeling herself to face it. She remembers that when she'd first encountered the Doctor, his eyes had seemed to be the most frightening aspect of him. That still holds true, but now she knows that there's something in there. Some _one_. Someone she can potentially learn a lot from, if she's careful and plays her cards right.  
  
He's regarding her with something like amusement, reaching up to push one of the monitors out of his way. Feng Min isn't sure if she's imagining it or not when his fingers don't quite touch it before it moves. [  That's what made it the smart choice.  ] He motions at her in a _come here_ way. [  I've been thinking about you lately. About what I should do with you.  ]  
  
It's hard not to feel slightly threatened by these words, with the way his bulging eyes and ever-snarling mouth are pointed right at her. He seems to expect her to respond, so, after a beat, Feng Min asks, "How did you know I'd even come back?"  
  
The Doctor seems to like her question. A little hum of sourceless laughter sweeps into the air, bouncing off the sloping walls. [  Imagine if you hadn't.  ]  
  
Feng Min wants to tell him, _No, it's more like I couldn't stay away,_ but she mumbles, "I'd rather not."  
  
He starts laughing again, or at least the laughter starts again, and his shoulders twitch like he's amused. Feng Min's starting to realize that reading the Doctor's body language is going to be important if she wants to infer the meaning behind his distorted voice. [  No, I don't think you'd want to know, either. You _are_ fragile, after all. ]  
  
_Fragile._ Feng Min bites her tongue, draws her knees together, tenses, waits for the moment to pass. This is dangerous. She's going to have to learn to control her impulses, and fast.  
  
"I thought I was _troubled_ , not fragile," she recalls, the words spilling out of her mouth anyway.  
  
[  The two aren't mutually exclusive. Have I hurt your feelings? I assure you that this assessment is as objective as I can manage. ] _Assessment_ , he says, like his sudden voyeurism into her mind had been some kind of clinical examination, one that could be measured and tested and diagnosed.  
  
"You're probably right," Feng Min says, as neutrally as she can. Because he _is_ right, in so many ways.  
  
[  If you have any questions, I'm sure that I can enlighten you.  ] The Doctor takes one stride across the center of the floor, a step that takes him halfway over to her. Close enough that if he reaches out, he could probably grab her, but she makes herself stay put.  
  
"Enlighten me?" she repeats, not knowing if she wants to hear his answer.  
  
[  What sort of doctor would I be were I not willing to address your concerns?  ]  
  
Feng Min realizes that he must not be able to see into her mind without directly using his powers upon her, after all. So the key is _touch_. Still— it's for the best that she avoids lying as much as possible. "I have a lot of questions," she confesses, "but they're not all about that."  
  
[  You can ask me anything you'd like.  ] His hands come together in front of his chest, little flashes and sparks dancing from one palm to the other, lighting his face up from below. Feng Min watches him warily, cautious of a sudden change of mood, not knowing if he really means anything he says to her. The Doctor seems to detect her reluctance, because he laughs. [  Go on.  ]  
  
Fine, then. "What year is it?" A question she's asked most of the other survivors by now.  
  
[  Ah. You're paying attention, aren't you?  ] The glow intensifies, goes blinding. Behind him, the monitors flicker to white, then black, then snap back to noise. [  The last year I experienced that I can actually verify is 1983.  ]  
  
Now _that's_ interesting, even if Feng Min isn’t sure if she can believe him; she’s just surprised that he answered her so easily. She's not going to push for more details, not knowing how much he's willing to toy with her. She's still in stuck in a state of disbelief that they're just standing here, having a _conversation._  
  
"Okay," she says steadily, looking towards the floor for a moment, at the light coming between the visible pipes below, and then up to his intimidating form. "Another question. The En... I mean..." What would a killer call the Entity? She doesn't know. "The... _thing_ that feeds from this world."  
  
The Doctor is not offering her any help; he's just looking at her, head tilted, his face an expressionless mask of agony.  
  
"...Does it know? About... me being here, and..." Feng Min settles for, hoping that he understands what she's trying to ask.  
  
[  The Entity is satisfied to allow things to happen as they will,  ] says the Doctor. His head's still canted. Feng Min waits for him to finish his sentence, but she realizes that was it; he's done with his answer. She wonders how to interpret what he means. It could only be one of two things: the Entity either isn't watching them here, or it doesn't care. Depending on which one it is, she's potentially doing either something very dangerous or very pointless.  
  
But she's already agreed to join this game of roulette. To pull the trigger when her turn comes.  
  
Feng Min weighs her odds with her next question. She doesn't know if the information she's about to expose is something he'd expect or not. The Doctor seems to know she's nervous, because there's a suppressed sort of laughter coming from his direction, echoing back through the monitors, changing the pattern of the noise.  
  
"Tell me about this place. Léry's Memorial Institute," she says carefully, her eyes trained on his face.  
  
A groan hisses out of him, but it doesn't sound like he's irritated. The Doctor’s body language is reading more like the unpredictable energy that had come from him the first time she'd encountered him, right when he'd killed her. He walks right up to her, humming, and the static blanket gets denser, but it's not enough to maintain her personal space. Feng Min wills herself not to run or tremble or do anything but stand there even as he looms over her. He can clearly read her fear, and — just as clearly — he seems to be savoring it.  
  
[  This was a real hospital, once,  ] comes the voice in her head. [  One that did important work. Work that no other place could ever hope to replicate.  ] He's so big that he's mostly blocking her view of the monitors suspended from the ceiling behind him, but Feng Min can see that they're all flickering to life, throwing black and grey and white shadows and light-forms over the walls. Discordant visions flicker through the noise, so much visual stimuli that it makes her immediately ill to look at, her brain hitching up to overload.  
  
She has to turn her face away, her eyes burning. The shadow over her moves; she looks up to see that the Doctor is crossing the space.  
  
[  Follow me,  ] he says.  
  
An immediate compulsion to obey rushes up into her chest. There’s something strange about him, his voice, the way the static moves over and through him. She’s coming to realize that his voice is finding a place in her head. When she’d first encountered it, it had been a frightening experience, something like invasion— but now it just feels like the static, numbing the insides of her thoughts, a sleek covering around her brain, a loosening of her willpower. The longer he’s stringing her along, allowing her to live, the more permission Feng Min gives herself to be bold, trying not to tip over the edge into reckless.  
  
There’s a surreal feeling, again, that she might not be the one making her own decisions now.  
  
Feng Min follows him, her eyes trained on his broad shoulders, watching the electricity run from one to the other, tracking down into the flesh and then out again where muscle meets machine. There’s this sort of imperceptible trail that follows him, like a wake after a boat, that makes her every step behind him feel shaky somehow. He leads her down a hallway that looks just like any one of the others, with debris and damage littering the floor, ceiling, and walls.  
  
The monitors they pass are all repeating the same dizzying assortment of data they had been in the treatment theater. It’s all snow on snow on snow. But then, as she follows the Doctor, images begin appearing in the screens, growing clarity and contrast. Feng Min doesn’t know what she’s seeing. Blood spilling. A camera’s eye. Machines and men. Machines and monsters. And distortion— so much of it that she has to slow down behind the Doctor to focus her eyes on the floor in front of her.  
  
It’s only when the Doctor stops that Feng Min takes in her surroundings. She’s startled to find that they have come to an area of the hospital that she’s never seen before.  
  
It’s a sort of examination room. She doesn’t really understand what she’s looking at. It’s just as dark and gloomy as the rest of the hospital; the lights are flickering, barely lit, and making a sharp buzzing sound that pierces the static layer in her ears. One wall has a row of monitors — a couple of them are on, displaying the word _ERROR_ — and then there’s an array of equipment that appears both archaic and alien to her, including two rusty examination chairs. They're lined with peeling, pale blue vinyl marked with indistinct stains, tipped back into a reclining position.  
  
The Doctor looks over his shoulder at her as he moves over to the wall, his hands reaching in behind the monitors to do something Feng Min can’t see. [  Are you surprised?  ]  
  
"Yes," she says, unable to lie. "Has this always been here?"  
  
[  Not for your kind, ] he responds. There’s a sort of dismissiveness to the way he says it. [  You’ll find that most of this world can be… ] He seems to take a moment to select an appropriate word. [  ...elaborated upon.  ]  
  
Somehow, it’s not a surprise to her. The boundaries of the realms become strange and indeterminate out in the fog, outside of trials. Sometimes they seem to grow into one another, amalgamating landscapes in both jarring and natural ways.  
  
Feng Min watches as the rest of the monitors blink on and begin to synchronize. They begin running something that looks a lot like DOS to her. She watches them for a moment, unable to catch much of the code because of how fast it’s scrolling down the screens, before she turns towards the Doctor. "What is this room used for?"  
  
He faces her now, and there’s a little jump of laughter coming off of him, spinning and warping. [  Data. ]  
  
The static builds up at the crest of her head, feels like it's knocking, requesting access to the inside of her skull. Feng Min places a hand against one of the examination chairs to steady herself and notices for the first time that it, too, has restraints attached to every section of it, just like the chairs in the treatment theater. She removes her hand from it. "So all of this equipment really works?"  
  
The Doctor looks down at her, now. The hazy quality of his irises seems to shift in and out, from pinpoint to halo. [  I told you. This was a real hospital once. ] There's something insidious in the way he says it this time. That last word, _once_ — there's something in it, something that weighs the term down, begs to be exposed. It could mean so many different things. It could mean so _much._  
  
"Right," she breathes, nodding, knowing that he’s fully aware of just how tense she is right now.  
  
[  Come, now.  ] He closes in on her and brushes a hand against her shoulder. A painful little shock jumps off of him and seizes her bicep muscles for a moment. She winces; she thinks he might not have noticed, but it’s more likely that he doesn’t care. He’s gesturing towards the chair, as though invitingly.  
  
Feng Min’s staring at the restraints again, and immediately regrets opening her mouth when she stutters the first part of her question. "C-can you tell me what you’re going to be doing, first?"  
  
The Doctor’s hand moves behind her shoulder again, brushing up at the center of her back, before he presses her down into the chair, none too gently. Feng Min almost lets herself slip into a panic for a moment, thinking he’s reaching for the restraints, but once she’s in the chair he straightens up. She looks at him warily as she feels the hard metal buckles of the restraints digging into her back, but he doesn’t move to try to put her in them.  
  
He’s noticed her discomfort, though. His shoulders twitch, his fingers scattering sparks towards the floor. [  I can restrain you if necessary. Do you believe it’s necessary?  ]  
  
"No," says Feng Min, immediately and emphatically, sitting upright in the tilted seat. She draws her legs up and pulls them together.  
  
The Doctor takes on the tone of an admonishing superior. [  I thought so.  ] He’s doing something with one of the machines; he’s detached a cable from somewhere and is now typing something into the interface. [  I can read your brain waves, not your heart rhythms. Everything must be tested against the machine.  ]  
  
"Oh," she says, surprised that it’s something so… _mundane_. She’d come to expect differently, given her prior experiences with him. She’s almost a little surprised at the way he’s choosing to approach this. As though the scientific method is important to him. She's been expecting some kind of torture to begin at any moment.  
  
[  It's painless.  ] He says this as though he's doing her a favor, and she hates herself a little for being grateful for it. Then the Doctor lifts his arms, and Feng Min watches as he tugs his collar back, exposing a port in the back of his neck, which he plugs the end of the cable into.  
  
Of course this was going to be weird _somehow_ , she realizes. She'd find it disgusting, the way the port just sort of seems to tunnel right into his body — impossibly so — but ever since she'd arrived in the Entity's realm, her threshold for tolerating disgust has risen dramatically.  
  
Then he walks over to her, sort of half-crouching to look at her sitting in the chair, where Feng Min stubbornly refuses to lay back into a reclining position. He doesn’t seem bothered by that, comfortable in this realm of static and empty hallways and unanswered questions. It’s a shock, again, just how enormous he is, and just how powerless his presence makes her feel. If it weren't so frightening, it'd almost be thrilling, knowing that she's managed to get _this_ far. But she can't let herself forget that it's at his mercy only, and he might decide that she's no longer useful to him at any moment.  
  
[  You’ll need to lie down.  ] It's a command, not a request or a suggestion, and she folds immediately under it, that bewildering sense of needing to obey coming back over her. She carefully lays herself down on the examination chair and then tries to stay still as it lowers further with a screech of metal. She feels extremely vulnerable like this, on her back, like an animal with its vitals exposed to a predator.  
  
The Doctor’s holding something that Feng Min thinks is probably an assortment of electrodes, but they're not like any electrodes she's seen before. There's a strange sort of chamber right where the wire meets the flat shield, covering or maybe joining them together. When she looks closely — and maybe in just the right light — she can see a sort of dull luminous quality coming from them. She doesn’t really get a good look at them before he’s pulling her jeans up above her ankles to press one onto both legs.  
  
He moves up the chair then and reaches out to grab one of her arms, extending it over the armrest and exposing her pale white wrist. Feng Min thinks about how absolutely unhesitant he’s always been to touch her, just grabbing at her without a thought towards her feelings on the matter. It's like that in the trials, too, with all of the killers. The way they just throw them all around like cargo. But she remains silent, mouth sealed shut as the Doctor attaches electrodes to both of her wrists.  
  
When he's done with those, she waits to see what's next as he reaches towards her with a different set of electrodes in his grasp. But then one of his hands moves towards her stomach, and the other takes the bottom hem of her _Let's Coffee!_ shirt. Before Feng Min can really react, the Doctor has tugged it up her stomach, to her ribs, and he moves to pull it up further.  
  
Her composure is immediately shattered before the possibility of showing one of these killers her breasts; her shirt is the only layer she’s got on. Her first instinct is to buck and scream, thinking that they've taken enough from her already, but instead she just stammers out, "What are you—"  
  
Her hands have flown up to his, pushing them back, stopping him from pulling her shirt up any further. Although he could easily dislodge her grip, his hand has gone still. But the chopped-and-screwed laughter now begins, twisting hysterically through the suite. [  What’s on your mind?  ]  
  
It's blatantly obvious that he's playing with this deliberate and dangerous process in some way she cannot possibly come to understand. What is it that's keeping her alive? Is it that he finds her humorous? Pitiful? Interesting?  
  
" _Don’t,_ " says Feng Min. She has to work to get the word out, even though it’s just one syllable.  
  
The Doctor's laughing again. He pulls back a bit, staring down at her laying there, pink-cheeked and clutching her shirt in place at her chest. His shoulders are shaking again. There's no way to read his expression, but the body language is obvious— he's mocking her. He puts a hand up on the headrest of the chair and reaches out towards her head with the other. [  Will you humor a question for me?  ]  
  
Feng Min's teeth are working at her lower lip. She gives a sort of nod, knowing it's a question with no real answer.  
  
His fingertips come up behind her right ear. When they meet the cartilage, she feels a shock, but it’s soon reabsorbed. It doesn't hurt. He strokes her there. [  Tell me. Do you think that you could stop me, if _that's_ what I decide I want from you?  ]  
  
There's this sense of paralysis she feels. But it's not like before, when he'd shocked her still, or made her mind feel disconnected from her body, or silenced her brain activity. It's more anesthetized, a full synaptic response. It's a feeling of helplessness, but at the same time, it's the feeling that it doesn't even matter; it's out of her control, anyway. She tries not to think too much about the way his fingertips are moving down to the nape of her neck— lightly. So lightly. When she opens her eyes, it's no surprise to her that he's already looking at her face. The moment holds.  
  
"No," she says, and she knows it. If the Entity is permissive of torture — if it is permissive of the bonds between survivors, if it is permissive of what is happening right now, at this moment — then, rationally, it would be just as indifferent towards any number of sins. Feng Min isn't naïve. Not in the way she used to be. The other survivors almost never talk about it, but Feng Min has gotten the impression that maybe, sometimes, a survivor alone and vulnerable out in the fog has ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and been really, _really_ unlucky. It _could_ be just a rumor — there's so much they have yet to learn about surviving in the nightmare — but it's enough to make her stomach clench.  
  
[  I'm glad we understand each other.  ] The circuit running through the Doctor's body suddenly turns brighter, so much warmer, hot enough that Feng Min can feel it. She knows that he can choose to hurt her in any way he wants. That he’s probably _likely_ to. But she remains in the chair.  
  
The Doctor’s laughter sails and then moors, and he leans back in, causing Feng Min to respond impulsively.  
  
She has to use both hands. She can't grasp his wrist with just one. Although she trembles noticeably, it stops when she locks her hands around his wrist, and the contact doesn't shock her. She feels a sort of twinge in her muscles, making her forearm flex involuntarily, but that's all. It doesn't unsteady her grasp or impede her from taking his hand and guiding it beneath her shirt.  
  
"Just… do it like this," she murmurs.  
  
He responds like he'd been expecting her to do this; all he does is sort of hum, somewhere from the center of his chest, and lean in carefully over her as his fingers brush up onto her ribs to find a place to set the electrodes. She hears a sort of crackling sound and feels the flare of heat off of his fingertips as they brush up against the underside of her left breast. The touch doesn't linger, and she doesn't know if it had been deliberate or not. His hand is so large, after all. When she looks at his face, it almost seems like he might be enjoying it, a bit, the way he’s focused so deliberately and carefully on what he’s doing.  
  
Despite the limitation of feeling around blindly, the Doctor seems to align the electrodes easily. The ones he places over her sternum seem symmetrical, but Feng Min is pretty sure her nervous sweating isn’t going to help them stick.  
  
When he slips his hand free, his fingertips skim down her stomach, for just a moment. He straightens, looking down at her now with that distinctive sort of malicious pity she’s starting to become familiar with. Feng Min takes in a few uneven breaths; she hadn’t realized she’d been holding most of hers when he’d been placing the electrodes beneath her shirt.  
  
[  Stay still.  ]  
  
That’s all he says before moving away; from somewhere behind her, Feng Min hears one of the machines emit a low-level tone. She wonders what he’s doing over there. She doesn't know; she's never had to sit through a test like this before. Her sport hadn't been a physical one, although it had been strenuous on her heart in a lot of ways. She focuses on her breathing, although she doesn't close her eyes.  
  
Eventually — she's not sure how long it is; the endless roll of the static sort of lulls her into a zen state — he seems to decide he’s finished, because he’s removed the cable from the back of his neck. He leaves her to take the electrodes off for herself, something she gratefully does with her body tilted slightly away from him as her hands fumble up beneath her shirt to peel them from her chest. When she's gotten rid of all of them, she swings her legs over the side of the chair and gets up, glad to no longer be having the buckles cutting into her back.  
  
He appears preoccupied. Not by the panel or by one of the screens, but suspended by something, for a moment, as he stands there by the machine. There's a curious change in the pattern of the current cresting over him, and the static — all of it, everywhere around her, everywhere in the building — trembles, too.  
  
And then he's present again, enough to be folding his arms across his chest, an almost meditative gesture.  
  
"Did you get what you needed?" she asks uncertainly, unable to bear any more silence, her nerves tipping her over. She looks at the screens, but there's nothing on them. "Can you show me?"  
  
The Doctor reaches up, gesturing vaguely around his head. _Oh._ So that’s what the cable was for. Feng Min doesn’t know why she’s surprised. He’s looking into the monitors; she still sees nothing but noise. [  We’re finished here.  ]  
  
Feng Min follows him down the hallways again. This time, she tries to keep in step, but it takes two and a half of her strides to match one of his. As he guides her, it occurs to her, all at once, that the Doctor is not only lucid, but intelligent. Well spoken, even if she senses that it is a carefully maintained behavior. But then, she debates with herself, what's with the bizarre laughter, the easily-triggered inclination towards violence, the strange behaviors?  
  
How had he come to be like this? Or had he always been this way?  
  
Feng Min is dying to ask him what he is, if there's a _who_ he is, what he knows. But she knows that she can't. She can only push her luck so far.  
  
They end up back in the office. It’s familiarly dusty and cold inside. Feng Min sort of lingers by the entrance, wondering if there's anything else he wants of her today. The Doctor takes a seat in the red leather chair and turns his attention back to her. The bright overhead lighting brings the warped skin stretching over his skull into relief. Between the headgear and the eyes, it's not always obvious that the rest of his face is just as tortured-looking, too. It's difficult to see beyond these mutations, what they could mean, what they might represent.  
  
Despite mounting evidence, her brain still does not want to approach the idea that maybe the killers here were all once people, like her.  
  
[  You’re waiting to be dismissed, aren’t you?  ] He’s got his hands clasped together, indulgently leaning back into the chair. [  Afraid of what I might choose to do if you slipped away unnoticed?  ]  
  
She colors darkly. He’s right on the money. Unsettled and unable to censor herself, she fires back, "Doesn't the doctor usually end the appointment?"  
  
His eyes seem to light up, and the laughter emanates from somewhere in or around him. [  That's right. But you'll return.  ] He sounds — again — affirmative, as if acknowledging an inherent truth. He's right, too. [  I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that I have no need to look through that sick mind of yours today. I have data to review.  ] He says _sick_ like he really means it— like she's ill. Now he's nodding towards the entryway: _go._  
  
Ever the game strategist, Feng Min always takes the exit the first moment it presents itself clearly. She gives the laces on her boots a quick tug, and she's already halfway out of the room when she hears him again.  
  
[  I'll come check to make sure that you've left. I have no issue giving you some incentive.  ]  
  
"I understand," she responds, and she really can't be out of the office fast enough. The moment she's put at least two hallways between herself and the Doctor is the first time she allows herself to take a proper, full breath since she'd arrived at the hospital, one that sucks real oxygen into her lungs. It leaves her panting, even though she hadn't exerted herself physically; the sudden break in tension has hit like a baseball bat to the face.  
  
As she moves towards the exit to slip back into the trees, Feng Min passes by a reception desk. She notices that the drawers are askew — they usually appear to be, around the hospital — and is taken by curiosity. She slips around behind the desk and kneels to pull one open the rest of the way.  
  
Inside are a bunch of dusty folders, marked in faint pencil, yellowed by time or water or mold or maybe all of those things. She pulls one free and carefully thumbs it open. The faded papers inside are incomprehensible to her; there's a lot of shorthand and numbers. She's not going to stick around sorting through them all, though, so she just reaches for the stack, brushes the dust off of the surface, and holds it tight to her chest as she slips out of the doors and into the forest.  
  
The fog delivers her almost right away to the campfire, where Quentin and Laurie have returned, safe and sound, and many of the other survivors are sitting around with them, listening to Kate's bright, clear singing strike out into the sky.


	6. treatment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, as always, for dropping by <3 Mostly I want to use this chapter note to show you [this incredible piece of art by Tumblr user vhypno](http://raycats.tumblr.com/post/180219212493/vhypno-if-youre-a-docfeng-fan-you-need-to-read), which has basically brightened up my entire month, or year, or maybe my life. Go give her some love, because she is ridiculously talented. 
> 
> Let me know what you think of this chapter! Comments both inspire me and keep me accountable to continue writing :')
> 
> ETA: Belated edit to note that [Tumblr user almaluna also created some art](http://raycats.tumblr.com/post/180250031828/vhypno-almaluna-soooi-read-a-fan-fiction) based on a scene in chapter 4!

Feng Min picks a spot just past the tree line, right before where the fog begins to thicken, so that she can go through the four folders she'd pilfered from Léry's Memorial Institute. She's got a flashlight with her, borrowed from Jake— he'd said that the battery was nearly spent, but it's still got enough light to read by.  
  
She's still not entirely sure why she'd done such a stupid thing, stealing from the Doctor's hospital— why she'd been so unable to resist the part of her that hungered to know more about it, about the world she's now in for eternity. About _him,_ too.  
  
The folders are innocuous in appearance, just plain manila, and it's impossible to tell one from the other. They're all labelled with different numbers on the outside. Feng Min can't identify any sort of pattern to the numbers, aside from the fact that they're all six digits long.  
  
One of the folders seems to contain some kind of record. There's a chart with dates stamped down one of the columns. She squints at the faded lettering and thinks that it must be some kind of sign-in log. There's another column where blocks of time have been filled in or scratched out. The only truly useful information the folder provides seems to be in the stamped dates: they all end with 1983, and abruptly stop after May 16th.  
  
She puts that folder aside and reaches for another one. It appears to house a collection of release forms. The papers have been so damaged, however, that the ink has run all over them, causing purplish watercolor blooms all over the pages, obscuring the words. Disappointed, Feng Min sets that folder down, too, and picks up the third, but it's empty. She's not expecting much, then, when she opens the fourth one.  
  
But this one is different. It contains one piece of paper, with a letterhead. It's not much of a letter, itself— there's just a few lines, typed slightly crooked across the page.

LÉRY'S MEMORIAL INSTITUTE  
FROM THE DESK OF DR. OTTO STAMPER, SENIOR TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICER OF THE DIRECTORATE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

* * *

April 3rd, 1983

I have my reservations about it. Access to be closed as of receipt of this letter.  
  
I assure you that everything is under control.  
  
Stamper

Feng Min scans it over a couple of times, troubled. The words aren't recognizable to her — she's not sure what they mean, apart from the fact that they seem sort of military in nature — but they certainly don't sound like titles that bring a hospital, or any medical facility, to mind. Senior technical intelligence officer? Directorate of science and technology?  
  
And then there's the name. _Otto Stamper._ She stares at it for a while, four letters followed by seven, willing some scrap of recognizance or realization to dawn on her, but it tells her nothing. Of course not.  
  
She asks Nea if she can have a piece of her sketching paper — Nea relinquishes it only after extracting a promise from Feng Min that she'll bring her more, if she finds some while out scavenging — and carefully transcribes the letter, word for word. She looks it over to see if she'd missed anything, folds it, and then pulls Baker's notebook free from its hiding spot so that she can slip it inside. It's a good enough place for it for now; it's better than having it on her, and it's not as though it'll make any more sense to the other survivors than it had for her.  
  
After she looks the folders over one more time — just in case she missed anything — she gets up and walks over to the fire. Nobody questions her as she tosses them one by one into the flames. They swallow the paper up almost immediately, edges curling up grey and wispy, blooming into ash.  
  
If the Doctor figures out what she's done, she supposes, the worst that he can do is kill her.

  
  


It's not surprising that the next trial Feng Min finds herself called to is at Léry's Memorial Institute. Burning the folders had only been an act of discarding evidence, but, she remembers, the Entity takes all manner of offerings, its hunger never fully sated by sacrifice nor gifts.  
  
The fog clears to show that it's set her down in one of the patient rooms, one of the longer ones with the double-stacked beds and their mysterious stains. She takes a few minutes to ground herself, shaking off the haze of being suddenly displaced by the Entity. The first thing she does after that is leave the room— there's something that particularly bothers her about these rooms, about the cold steel frames of the beds, about the lack of light, either natural or electric.  
  
She's starting to wonder if this place is really a hospital at all, thinking about Baker's notes on it — _a place where the human brain is turned into something unpleasant and broken_ — and the strange title that came after Otto Stamper's name. The Doctor had told her that it was a real hospital, but there's no reason for her to believe him. She doesn't know what he'd gain by lying to her, but she doesn't know what he'd gain by telling the truth, either.  
  
The hallway is empty. Feng Min spots a generator and tries to perk her ears for the Doctor's static field. There's a low thrum starting up right between her eyes, promising pain. She's come to the conclusion that the Doctor seems to be able to alter the quality of the static— it had been tolerable when she'd last seen him, but she's learned the extreme danger it poses during trials.  
  
They'd made an agreement, after all: he's not going to spare her.  
  
Feng Min's moving against the wall, trying to stick to the shadows, tugging her shirt up over her nose and mouth to stave off the smell of rust and plaster coming from the gutted walls.  
  
And then she notices something strange, at the end of one hallway, in the corner of the corridor. A door.  
  
Léry's Memorial Institute is a grid; all of the survivors know that. The rooms might be difficult to navigate, but the basic shape of the hospital is a square. She's never seen a door in any of the corners before. There aren't even any doors anywhere else in the hospital, so it looks bizarre there. Bizarre and wrong.  
  
It's not marked or labelled. Feng Min hesitates for only a moment, but then she hears a tortured scream coming from an adjacent hallway — that's the sound of madness, she knows it — and slips inside, closing the door behind her.  
  
It's some sort of storage room, or maybe a records room. It doesn't contain much, aside from some shelving against a wall and three rows of nondescript grey filing cabinets; some of them are padlocked. A single bare light bulb hangs from a plank in the unfinished ceiling; she wishes she'd brought a flashlight along.  
  
It's an unusual room, unlike any other in the hospital, and she knows without having to ask herself that the Entity has something to do with why she'd found it.  
  
_The folders,_ she thinks with a start. They hadn't just prompted the Entity to bring her here; they've exposed a new part of the hospital.  
  
She reaches for one of the filing cabinets, one without a padlock on it. She feels nervous, but there's a curiosity in her that she can't resist. She slides it open and peers inside, squinting into the shadows. She can't tell what's in there, so she sticks her hand in, groping around. It closes over something small, hard, and rectangular.  
  
It's a cassette tape. It's been so long since she's seen one with her own eyes — way, way back when she was little — that she just stares at it for a bit. The little white label reads _#78-0054,_ with nothing else. She turns it over in her hand, hesitating— and then she slips it into her pocket. When she reaches back inside, she locates six more of them. They all have numbers on them that she doesn't understand any more than the first one: _#81-0109_ , _#76-0093,_ and so on.  
  
She manages to fit four in her jacket pockets, and then she slips the other two into the back pockets of her shorts, feeling around to make sure they're laying flat.  
  
For a second, she feels guilty, but she tamps it down. She's not here to be an ally to the Doctor. They have a conditional armistice, and only because they're both after the same information. Something tells her that he might even respect her duplicity.  
  
Another scream catches her attention, and Feng Min hurries out of the room. Just as she closes it behind herself, she picks up the static field. It immediately floods into her vision, flickering like a strobe light and making her wince. The threat of pain is swelling up with it as the noise begins tunneling through her brain and into her mind. She takes off at a run, fully intent on surviving the trial.  
  
There's another shout from down the hallway. It sounds like Dwight, or maybe Quentin. She realizes the reason why when the shock wave of an active sacrificial hook rolls down the halls. It doesn't sound very far away. She teeters on the edge of a decision, and then heads towards it.  
  
The static broadens the closer Feng Min gets, the particles coming tighter together, dense enough to choke on. A splitting headache begins, and the effects start ratcheting up fast; she nearly screams when the Doctor materializes in front of her, before realizing that it's only a hallucination. It's alarmingly real, standing there clutching the punishment rod, staring directly at her. Unnerved, she steps around it, trying to see past the stuttering images whipping through her field of view.  
  
It starts to _really_ hurt, then. She spots the hook in the intersection of a hallway. It's Dwight. Clamping her teeth together against the impulse to start screaming, she rushes over and helps him off of the hook, his blood raining down upon her. He's groaning as he drops to the ground, clutching his shoulder.  
  
"Fuck," he says, his face drained of all blood, looking dizzy. It's clear that the static's gotten to him, too.  
  
The heartbeats are coming up right behind them.  
  
"Run," Feng Min hisses, yanking Dwight by the arm, trying to get him up. He just looks at her, mouth agape, then nods, stumbling off and slipping around a corner.  
  
She turns, knowing exactly what to expect. The Doctor's there, just a few paces away, and the noise coming off of him is so intense that it makes her legs wobble. There's no use trying not to scream now, but she claps both hands over her mouth to muffle it anyway.  
  
[  Hello again, Feng Min.  ] It's almost playful, the way it reverberates in her head, finding a nest among the static to allow her to hear him. [  I hope you remember our agreement.  ] His frozen face seems to be smirking.  
  
"Yeah," she says breathlessly, and she's _afraid_ , but she's also realizing that she doesn't feel as scared of him as she had before, the way she fears the other killers. She _knows_ he's going to try to kill her, and yet just knowing that they've come to an understanding about it seems to make all the difference. It almost makes it feel like a _game_. "Will you at least give me a head start?" she asks dryly, knowing that there is no real point in asking.  
  
The Doctor knows it, too. He's laughing, the weapon dangling loosely from one hand as he swings it in a half-arc at his side, his broad shoulders dropping. [  Go ahead. I'm going to kill you regardless.  ]  
  
There's a flood of adrenaline that goes through her at the way he says it, the thrill of a spark in her heart that clears the pain in her head for just one crucial moment. It's the excitement of a challenge set by a worthy opponent, a feeling that had long drifted out of reach a long time ago. "Fine," she replies, and she finds herself smiling, a little, even though her heart's skipping beats. "Come and get me."  
  
Giving him one brief look, Feng Min bolts for a window and jumps through. She can hear his laughter following behind her, the sounds layered one on top of the other, as though the hallucinations popping up around her are laughing, too.  
  
It's hard to see, but knowing the squared-off architecture of the hospital makes it easier to just dart blindly around, trying to find a dark corner where she can slip out of his sight. His heartbeats are right on her trail, and, through the static, she can hear him again: [  Does it not hurt enough?  ]  
  
A shiver ripples through her. His voice is so casual, so unaffected, and yet she reads the threat in it. It hurts like hell — she can't fight the screams that keep coming out of her — but she's not about to admit that.  
  
"No," she says, panting. She hauls herself up through a window frame, into one of the bathrooms, and backs up across the tiles. The Doctor comes before it, staring at her through the opening, the current tracking through his body turning blinding white, so bright it burns away the static in her field of view. "Give me more."  
  
The Doctor steps through the window. It's sort of impressive that his massive form even manages to fit through it. Feng Min steps back as he crosses towards her, tipping his head towards one shoulder as he lifts his left hand. The electricity begins to charge in his palm, moving from finger to finger. [  It's interesting, your resilience to punishment. Could that be because you tend to seek it out?  ]  
  
Extending his hand, the Doctor sends a powerful shock towards the ground, which ripples up through Feng Min's feet and up into her legs, sending pain throughout every part of her body and causing her to drop to the ground, screaming and regretting right then just what her smart mouth had brought her. The question he'd asked, though, is a shock of its own. Had he read that much into her mind, those few times he had accessed it?  
  
Hearing him describe her as someone who tends to seek out punishment is no surprise to her; he's telling her something that she already knows. She's been aware from the very beginning that she's the one responsible for all of her own mistakes, and _that's_ what really hurts. That had been the entire problem from the start. Just her. Her own failures. Her own mistakes and bad decisions. She's only got herself to blame and to rely on. Only herself to harm.  
  
_Truth hurts,_ her mother was fond of saying.  
  
She buries her face in her hands and rocks forward, trying to compress the noise into something she can mentally handle. She can barely understand the whimpers coming out of her own mouth; she thinks she might be begging him to stop, but she can't hear herself behind the static field.  
  
The Doctor's moving towards her. She sees his worn leather shoes come to a stop before her. [  On a scale of one to ten, one being no pain and ten being the worst possible, how much would you say it hurts?  ]  
  
Feng Min can really only scream. It feels like her mind's exploded and been pieced back together on the inside of a kaleidoscope, preventing her from seeing herself whole ever again. But she manages, with extreme effort, to scream, " _One!_ "  
  
It's barely a second after that when the blow at her side knocks her over. When the stick connects with her body, the spikes shredding through her jacket and shirt and ripping across the skin beneath, she barely comprehends it; the noise has already claimed all of her senses, her faculties. She's knocked to the ground, bleeding, and he kneels to hoist her over his shoulder. The current seizing her muscles grounds itself once she's pressed against him; she'd be able to struggle, now, if she were able, but her mind is somewhere else, struggling to come back to the conscious surface.  
  
He finds her a hook inside one of the treatment rooms, and he doesn't hesitate to hang her. Feng Min can't bite back the howl of pain that tears from her gut, a strangled-sounding scream that has her writhing, her hands flying up to the hook that's torn through her shoulder. It's enough pain to wash the static from her eyes, just a little.  
  
The Doctor's standing right in front of her, laughing. Seeing that he hasn't moved away yet, Feng Min impulsively kicks out and manages to hook a leg over his shoulder, where she'd bled all over his coat as he carried her. Surprised that she'd managed that much, Feng Min just dangles there for a moment before she swings her remaining leg over his other shoulder. Understanding now the advantage it may afford her, she presses her calves into his shoulder blades and tries to use the leverage created to haul herself up off the hook.  
  
His hands come up and grasp at her bare thighs, sending a hot pulse of electricity shrieking up through every fiber of muscle. Feng Min seizes, shrieking, her blood-streaked hands dropping from the hook, and she feels his hands tighten on her, his fingertips digging in. [  You really do need to be disciplined. Everyone has a limit. I'll find yours. It's only after that that you could ever be cured.  ]  
  
For once, they're almost eye-level, but he's _still_ taller than where the hook has her hanging. Feng Min tries to focus her eyes on his features, feeling lightheaded from blood loss and the chaos flickering through her head. She thinks to herself that she should try to kick him in the face, but he's still got her muscles seized painfully, and trying to fight it hurts even more. But she needs to show him that she isn't afraid of him, even when she is. It feels like her life depends on it. " _Try_... me," she forces out.  
  
[  I will,  ] he says, a promise, and then he starts laughing again as an ear-piercing thunder lacerates the sky. The light and heat and dark ash begin closing in around Feng Min as the Entity descends, hungry for her. As the talons take material form around her, the Doctor steps back, and although she kicks weakly, she's forced to struggle there, the hook — and her shoulder — bearing her full weight.  
  
And he just stands there, watching her. She's aware of her allies finishing generators in other hallways, and she's sure he is, too, but the Doctor still stands there, observing her struggle against the Entity.  
  
There's not much left in her. But she doesn't feel as afraid, this time. There's still something beautiful in the Entity's embers, despite herself.  
  
"I'll... see you... soon," she struggles to gasp out, and while the dark old one begins to unspool the thread of life from her, she hears his reply, still right there behind her eyes:  
  
[  I look forward to it.  ]

  
  


Not knowing who else to ask, she'd brought the tapes to Quentin.  
  
"What are these?" he asks, his forehead creasing as he examines the labels. "Where did you find them?"  
  
"I can't," she starts, hesitating, "I can't... tell you yet. I want to listen to them first."  
  
Quentin doesn't seem offended by this remark, although he does look curious. "You'll need something to play this on," he says thoughtfully.  
  
She nods, crossing her arms and cleaning back, away from the campfire. "That's why I'm asking you."  
  
Next to her, Quentin tosses a look over his shoulder at the other survivors gathered there. Kate, Ace, and David are all laughing over something. Bill and Laurie are engaged in quiet conversation, and have been for a while. Nobody's looking at the little black cassettes in Feng Min's lap.  
  
"Well, you came to the right guy," says Quentin, giving her one of his soft, sleepy smiles. "I think I know just the place."

  
  


Springwood is a place locked in quiet evening, just like the rest of the nightmare. No day, but no real night, either. And never any sun.  
  
Feng Min walks with Quentin down the street, over the litter and the cracks in the asphalt. She wants to ask him, _Has Springwood always looked like this?_ but she knows already that the Entity has warped and mutated this place just as much as it had any other realm. Nothing in the nightmare will ever look the way it should. There will always be something unsettling about it, no matter where they end up.  
  
"You know," says Quentin quietly. They haven't heard any singing or seen any ashes, yet, so it seems safe to talk. "Every time I'm here, I just remember all the bad stuff that happened..."  
  
"That has to be hard," says Feng Min, feeling both surprised and guilty. She knows that Quentin is tied to Springwood, but although it's starting to feel like she's been here for a while, she still doesn't know why. "I didn't know."  
  
He shakes his head. "No, that's not why I'm telling you this. I'm getting stronger. Every time I come here. And I'm ready to stay as long as I have to, so I can't keep being afraid."  
  
Feng Min nods, and then, after a beat, asks, "How long do you think that'll be?"  
  
"If it's eternity, I don't care." Quentin looks utterly resolute. "As long as it means that Freddy Krueger can never return to the real world, either."  
  
She's a little amazed by his selflessness. "But why?"  
  
"He'd hurt everyone I love. No— kill them. He'd been trying to, even right before I got here. And he succeeded. Many times." Quentin looks just absolutely exhausted in that moment, right down to the bone, his hands shoved inside his pockets and his eyes pointed at the ground. Looking at him makes Feng Min feel lost and sad.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
Quentin moves up past the makeshift playground, up the walkway, slipping under the Badham Preschool sign and taking a quick look down the hall. "What's done is done. I know it's probably eating him alive, being here. I know he must hate it. Because it means he can never hurt Nancy again."  
  
"Nancy's your girlfriend, right?" recalls Feng Min; Quentin never seemed to hesitate to bring her up in conversation around the campfire. She'd heard plenty _Nancy and I used to..._ and _My girl Nancy is..._ stories.  
  
"Kind of. We never made it official. And it's not like we're... I mean, you can't exactly maintain a long-distance relationship from here," says Quentin shyly, laughing in a self-deprecating manner. "I just hope she's happy and safe."  
  
Feng Min smiles a little at the purity of Quentin's integrity, and then remembers something. She's a bit reluctant to broach the topic, not wanting to make him uncomfortable, so she says, "Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Is it about Laurie?" he replies immediately. He's right; of course it is. Feng Min thinks that many of the other survivors must have sensed it, too. They pause in the hallway of the preschool, right before one of the enormous holes in the floor, and stare at one another. Quentin just nods at the look on her face. "I don't know."  
  
"You don't know what?" Feng Min prompts. "Everyone lost track of the both of you for a while..."  
  
There's a lengthy silence. Quentin looks like he's thinking hard, carefully choosing his words. "I think Laurie might be the strongest person I've ever met," is what he finally settles on, his voice swelling, briefly, with something heavy. He swallows. "She kept us alive. The both of us. When we were out there, I mean. I've been here for... I don't know. It feels... so long. And Laurie's always been there, even before I arrived. When I see how she always puts up a fight, and the... the way she never loses hope, it just amazes me every time. She's so strong. She reminds me not to give up. It'd be so easy to, you know?" He shrugs.  
  
Feng Min knows exactly how easy giving up is. Much more than he'll ever be able to know. "Yeah," she says softly. She's gained some insight into both Quentin and Laurie tonight, at least.  
  
Quentin nods, reaching out to touch her on the shoulder. "Come on," he says. "Downstairs."  
  
In the basement, but thankfully nowhere near the sweltering boiler room, Quentin leads her towards the strange little nook in the wall, the one with the filthy mattress. Feng Min often spots totems right there, so any time she finds herself in Springwood, she usually tries to take a trip to this exact spot.  
  
There are no totems now, of course, with the realm's barriers down outside of a trial, but there are some shelves and cardboard boxes down here, full of unidentifiable junk.  
  
"Swear I saw something here, once," Quentin mutters to himself as he digs through one of the boxes. "He lived— _lives_ like a fucking rat, so it has to be squirreled away somewhere."  
  
Feng Min's sorting through another box when Quentin gives a triumphant huff. She turns towards him.  
  
"Boom," he says, holding out a bulky grey piece of old tech. "Cassette player."  
  
Feng Min can't help but grin, a real and rare smile breaking over her face. "You're the real MVP," she says. He turns it over and slides open the cover on the battery compartment. It's no surprise that it's empty. Quentin's got more solutions, though, because he unscrews the bulb off of his flashlight and taps the batteries out, which he replaces in the cassette player.  
  
"Here you go," he says, holding it out to her.  
  
Feng Min takes it. It's heavier than expected and hilariously retro. She pops open the tape compartment and takes one of the cassettes from her pocket — _#81-0109_ — to fit it in. Then she looks at Quentin, turning things over in her mind. She thinks she can trust him. "Look," she says nervously, her thumb hovering over the _PLAY_ button. "You should know that I stole these from the hospital."  
  
"Seriously?" Quentin's heavy eyebrows raise. "That takes some balls." He actually sounds impressed.  
  
She feels a little reassured by that, laughing nervously. She can't tell him much more than that, but whatever's on these tapes, it'll probably be a good idea to have someone else to analyze them with. And then she can decide what to do with the information. "I don't know what's on them. But... if I let you listen to them with me, you can't tell anyone about it. Not yet." She hopes he doesn't ask her to explain too much; she doesn't think she can, right now.  
  
But Quentin only nods seriously. "Okay. I trust you," he says. "Let's hope it's Led Zeppelin, or something."  
  
Feng Min feels less anxious after that remark, and so they head upstairs. There's a little table in one of the play rooms, barely enough for two people to sit at, but they manage as Quentin makes a quip about how they both have short legs. She lays the cassette player in the center of the table, and then hits _PLAY_.  
  
There's only noise at first, sounding a bit like the crackling of the campfire. It takes about twenty seconds until a voice is heard. The recording quality is low; Feng Min immediately has to lean over to turn the volume up. The words skip together, but most of it is discernible.  
  
_"Eight one. Zero one, zero nine."_  
  
_"Don't, don't, don't, please don't, don't—"_  
  
_"That's eight one, zero one, zero nine."_  
  
_"No! Don't!"_  
  
_"The result of yesterday's treatment was inconclusive. The method will be repeated to verify a response. We'll be adjusting the wavelength and increasing the voltage..."_  
  
The screaming turns wordless.  
  
_"...which will hopefully bring about calm."_  
  
Quentin turns ashen faced as the tape continues on. Feng Min thinks that he must be a mirror of her own face right now. They sit through all nine minutes of it; by the end, nothing can be heard on the recording but screaming— except when it suddenly stops.  
  
The tape goes still inside the player. Feng Min feels sick. There's something wet on her cheek. When she reaches up to wipe it away, she's astonished to find that it's a tear.  
  
Across from her, Quentin is rubbing his eyes, too, fingers bowed in a tense manner. "Jesus wept," he whispers, and his hand moves from his face to perform the sign of the cross on himself, a movement so natural it looks instinctive.  
  
Feng Min just nods numbly.  
  
They listen to half of the next one, and a bit of the third, but they're all similar. They're all recordings of torture.  
  
The journey back through the forest is a safe and quiet one, which helps a lot, because Feng Min can keep her thoughts to herself. Including the fact that she'd recognized the voice in those tapes.

  
  


Feng Min feels uneasier than ever as she walks up to the front of the hospital. Léry's Memorial Institute looks darker than it did before as it looms her. For the first time, clarity comes to Feng Min about the strange, spire-like posts adorning its corners: they're guard towers. She can't believe she hadn't realized it sooner.  
  
The Doctor startles her by meeting her at the doors, appearing in the waiting room as a specter of sinister light. Abruptly, Feng Min is deeply, intensely afraid, and she stops short, her hands trembling. He's staring right through her, silent. The moment passes, and Feng Min tells herself, again, that she needs to show him that she's not frightened of him, so she ends up walking right through the entryway towards him.  
  
"You won't get me next time," she says unsteadily, but she's got her shoulders straight, and there's a shred of defiance in her voice.  
  
[  We'll see, won't we?  ] He reaches out to give her a little push on the shoulder. Sparks, like static electricity, snap beneath his touch.  
  
_It is,_ she thinks. _It's the same voice._ And, for some reason, the confirmation makes it feel like her heart's dropped down into her stomach, and she doesn't know why, doesn't _want_ to know why. She struggles to close the lid on that hideous box, at least while she's here.  
  
To her surprise, he looks different today. Feng Min has noticed, sometimes, that the shapes or forms or garments some of the killers wear seem to change. That makes sense; after all, the Entity had made clothing easily scavengeable for the survivors, too. But today's the first time she's seen him out of the white coat. He cuts a striking but extremely unsettling figure in both suit vest and tie. It makes her think of something a psychiatrist or an executive might wear.  
  
But more interesting than that is his face. There's some sort of leather and steel mask stretched over his head, nose, and jawline. A heavy-duty mechanical contraption keeps his mouth locked open, but he's also wearing a nasal tube that's crusted with blood, and one of his eyes has been stapled shut in a way that makes her own eye twitch to look at. _Staples_ , right in his eye. The other one leers as always. She wonders how far down the nails sticking out of the bandages wrapped around his head go.  
  
[  It isn't polite to stare.  ] He moves ahead of her to lead, and Feng Min sucks back a sound of annoyance at the fact that he'd noticed.  
  
"Doesn't that hurt?" she blurts out.  
  
The only response she gets is laughter, lashing out behind him on the river of static. Feng Min quickens her steps to get closer, tilting her head to peer cautiously up into his face. He glances back at her with his one eye. [  Why? Are you worried about me?  ]  
  
"What?" Feng Min fumbles her next step on a broken tile, and catches her balance, turning her face away as she feels it grow hot with anxiety. Is she? Should she be? "I'm just... curious."  
  
[  We're here to learn about you. Not me.  ] The Doctor motions her ahead of him, and Feng Min sees that they've come to the carpet leading to the office. She doesn't exactly want to turn her back on him, but saying something about it will only make her appear frightened, so she moves ahead and steps inside, blinking through the dust. The Doctor brushes past her and drops into the chair, propping an ankle onto the opposite knee. Feng Min lingers back by one of the ladders, leaning into it.  
  
"So, um..." she trails off, noticing again his unblinking gaze — _we'll be adjusting the wavelength and increasing the voltage_ — and trying to refocus. "Did you find anything new? From... last time, I mean."  
  
[  There is nothing unique about your vitals. They're indistinguishable from the average human's.  ] His red eye flicks up, towards the ceiling. [  I haven't confirmed anything unusual about your brain. It requires more testing.  ]  
  
_Testing._ Thinking about the folders and the tapes she'd swiped, it's not something she's looking forward to either hearing about or experiencing, so she figures she'll try asking him a few questions, ones that have been bothering her.  
  
"You once asked me what I'd done," Feng Min says slowly, folding her arms over her chest, "to be able to hear you." She sucks on her lower lip, frowning towards the floor. "Like you were surprised. Why?"  
  
Despite her trepidation, he answers her question. [  I've never encountered a human that was able to understand me here.  ]  
  
Feng Min almost misses that last word, _here_ , but it's a heavily loaded one. She holds it in her mouth, commits its implications to memory, and asks a question she thinks she already knows the answer to. "Can you talk? Out loud, I mean?"  
  
[  No.  ] The Doctor's got a book in his lap. He's thumbing through it now instead of looking at her.  
  
_Why don't you take that thing off?_ is what she wants to ask next, but the way he says _no_ makes her pause. Maybe he _can't,_ she realizes.  
  
[  There is latent psychic ability in some of my kind. We're able to communicate.  ] Feng Min immediately knows what he means by _my kind_ — the other killers. She's startled and astonished at this piece of information he's chosen to share with her. She'd never considered before that some of the killers must interact, too, that some of them probably even _need_ the social stimulation. It's an unsettling thought, at odds with most of what she knows about the Entity's henchmen, and it brings a knot into her throat.  
  
She wants to ask _which ones,_ or _who_ , but she senses he won't be willing to be nearly that generous to her. And, yet, an insane part of her wants to ask, anyway, just to see how he'll react. Hell, part of her wants to tell him that she'd stolen from the hospital, that she's been digging into places she shouldn't, just so she could see his response. _Why?_ she wonders. He won't hesitate to hurt her. She _knows_ it. And maybe that blackened, withering part of her doesn't mind that. Wants it, even. Is that why she started doing this?  
  
_It's interesting, your resilience to punishment. Could that be because you tend to seek it out?_  
  
Her vision swims. She steadies herself against the ladder.  
  
The Doctor's been watching her expressions, apparently, because the voice in her head says, [  Something's troubling you. Come here.  ]  
  
Not knowing what he means by that, Feng Min stays where she is, looking at him apprehensively.  
  
[  I suggest obedience,  ] the Doctor says, and she just barely manages to stop herself from telling him that she isn't interested in his advice. But, with a sour expression, she takes a few reluctant steps forward, until she's standing in front of him seated in the chair. [  Kneel.  ]  
  
At this command, Feng Min's brows come together, and her face splits into a scowl. " _What?_ " she says, her displeasure dangerously apparent.  
  
But the Doctor only laughs a little, soft, as if the volume's been turned down, and lifts a hand. Feng Min sees the electricity flaring out around it, and for a moment she thinks he's finished with their agreement and is going to kill her again. But then he reaches out to touch her hip before she can pull away, and an unfathomable pain takes hold of the muscles in her legs. Her knees collapse almost instantly; she crumples to the floor in front of him. She feels a cold sweat break out under her clothes, and struggles to lift her head up to look at him as the connection is broken. She gasps, pulling in lungfuls of air.  
  
"You _asshole_ ," she groans, figuring she doesn't have much to lose.  
  
In response, his rough hands settle down on her head and press it to his lap. She hears a sort of hiss emerge from low in his throat— not in her head. It sounds like he's trying to say _shhhh._ Her muscles still hurt, so she just sits there, heart pounding in her ears, wondering what he wants from her. The Doctor's fingers weave through her hair, his surprisingly light touch seeking specific points on her scalp. It's comforting, in a way, if she closes her eyes and pretends she's somewhere else, but she's also aware of just how easy it would be for him to snap her neck right now.  
  
[  Let's have a look.  ] His fingertips press into her skull, and before Feng Min can prepare herself — try to fortify her mind, put her most private moments and misdeeds away in a corner where he can't access them — she feels the oppressive presence slithering into her brain. Slow at first, so slow it almost feels good, like she's being put under, breathing anesthesia. But then comes the static, slicing through her mind like a knife. The pain is extreme, and her mouth moves soundlessly, rendered silent by the current he's set within her.  
  
There's that sensation again of crowdedness, of voyeurism. Memories fan out before her like a picture book, each one with a thousand associated sights and sounds and smells and feelings. It's everything, and yet it's nothing, far beyond what her mind is equipped to process all at once. Mostly, there is pain, and there's _him_ , sorting through it all.  
  
Faintly, she notices that she's shaking where she's crumpled at his feet, because his hands are holding her head down. She tries to focus on that feeling — something tangible, weighted, real — and not the cataclysm in her mind. When he releases her, he's silent, and as she breathes through it, trying to shake off the pain, she realizes that he must have found something.  
  
[  You have a certain name in your mind. Where did you learn it?  ]  
  
Feng Min lifts her head from his lap. It feels heavy, like she's still on the verge of falling unconscious. She blinks several times, but she's not quick enough for an excuse. "I think you know," she manages. He's seen it, hasn't he?  
  
[  No, really. I'd like to hear how you learned the name of Otto—  ]  
  
The voice stops in her head, abruptly, like a voicemail that's gone on for too long. She stares up at his face. There's a strangely blank look in his one visible eye; it's staring out beyond her. He's not moving.  
  
Dread overwhelms her, and it rises above her head when he looks down at her as though he doesn't recognize her. Without a word, he reaches out and wraps his hands around her neck. The electricity explodes around him, hot enough that when a spark hits her hand, she's almost instantly burned there. But that barely registers on her radar right now, because his thumbs are pressing down on her carotid arteries.  
  
Feng Min claws at his arms, unable to make any noise. Everything around her goes blurry; she's swiftly losing consciousness. She doesn't _understand_. What is happening?  
  
[  You need healing. I can cure you. I can get rid of the sickness. I can help you. I can break you. I can help you. I'll break you. I'll help you I'll break you I'll break you I'LL BREAK YOU I'LL HELP YOU BREAK YOU BREAK YOU BREAK YOU BREAK— ]  
  
She can still _feel_ him, she realizes. The static. His voice in her head, as horrible and shrieking as it sounds right now, like a corrupted tape. Whatever thing it was that had bound them together, that draws her to him, she can still feel it. Feng Min tries to grasp onto it, looking for him in the noise. Whispers begin slipping into her thoughts, murmurs of an ancient language she could never hope to understand. The Entity is here, too.  
  
Struggling, she reaches out towards him. She manages to ineffectively grab at his vest, and then the blackness closes in—  
  
Oxygen comes flooding back, and Feng Min tips over, curling up on her side on the floor, her head spinning, gasping for air. He's let her go. Her hands go up to her throat, carefully touching it; it hurts like hell. Her chest is heaving as she tries to recover, her vision still completely blacked out.  
  
Above her, the Doctor is sort of tilted forward, a strange look in his eye, his shoulders slumped. The current around him cuts out entirely, and he just sits there, taking his heavy, audible breaths.  
  
"Wh-" Feng Min tries to say, but her throat feels like it's on fire, so she shuts up.  
  
He finally notices her. She's quivering as he reaches out to pull her back into a sitting position. His hands aren't gentle— but they aren't rough with her, either. They move to cup her face, and he leans forward to examine her throat. [  How long?  ]  
  
She doesn't understand the question at first, staring up at him with wide eyes. She coughs violently and tries to answer. "I don't... know. Fifteen... seconds?" It had felt like so much longer.  
  
The Doctor just stares at her, and the knowledge of what's happened settles over her.  
  
"You don't remember...? What happened?" she asks, feeling a deep fear start in the middle of her chest without knowing why.  
  
[  You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you,  ] he says.  
  
"I heard the Entity," says Feng Min. She squeezes her eyes shut; a brewing headache is making it hard to think. "And then you let go." She reaches up to rub her tender throat.  
  
The Doctor's hand floats up to his temple, and he shakes his head. [  I see.  ] He doesn't explain, or apologize, or even ask her if she's alright, and there's a part of her that wishes he would. He seems somber, though, because he's not reaching to harm her again.  
  
So Feng Min sits there for a couple of silent minutes, just trying to breathe steady through her nose, listening to the wheeze of him breathing around the cannula. Had he attacked her on purpose? Wouldn't he have finished the job, if that were the case? She wants to grab for his sleeve and demand that he explain it to her, even if he thinks she wouldn't understand. _Why?_  
  
Finally, she says softly, "Otto Stamper's not your name, is it?"  
  
He looks at her sideways. [  No.  ]  
  
Holding his gaze, Feng Min whispers, against all better judgment, "Do you have one?"  
  
A silence lapses. The Doctor weaves his fingers together over his knees. [  Yes. I once had a name. I also once had a human body, like yours.  ]  
  
Stunned, Feng Min asks, "What about the... the other killers?"  
  
He just nods at her.  
  
Suddenly, she feels like crying. There's a black canyon of despair opening inside of her, swallowing her whole into the deep. They're all being punished by the Entity, aren't they? What makes her any different from him, or the Pig, or the Huntress, or the Cannibal, or any one of them? They're all prisoners. Prisoners with different roles. The realization of this truth has come down on her all at once.  
  
She blinks several times, until the threat of tears goes away, mollified by the thought of showing that much vulnerability to anyone, let alone the killer before her.  
  
Staring down into her lap, she asks, "Can you tell me why I can sometimes hear the Entity when I'm near you?"  
  
[  You're hearing what I hear. It's a part of me. Just like it is already a part of you.  ] The Doctor gets up from the chair and leans over to help her to her feet. It's more like picking her up, really, considering his inhuman strength and her petite frame. She grasps at his arm to regain her balance, trying not to touch the cables, and then she slips out of his grasp, suddenly afraid of the strange draw she feels towards him.  
  
"Did you find what you wanted this time?" Feng Min runs a hand through her hair. He'd found out about the folders, but he hadn't mentioned the tapes. Either he's not telling her so, or he hadn't accessed the memory, which is interesting.  
  
[  Psychologically, you are obviously unwell.  ] _Speak for yourself,_ she wants to say. [  But I still can't determine the source of your link to me. We will need to try again.  ]  
  
"I guess," she says, "I'll just have to keep visiting."  
  
He cants his head at her. [  Your company is not unpleasant.  ] The Doctor presses a hand to her back to guide her out of the office. She recognizes that he intends to walk her out, but whether it's from concern that she'll try stealing again or concern about her well-being, she doesn't know. It's almost certainly the former, but a little part of her wonders.  
  
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said about me in a while," she says, and she sort of means it, although she's not sure he'll appreciate her humor.  
  
But he laughs, open and clearly. [  How sad for you.  ]  
  
"I'm not great at making friends." Feng Min shrugs, and then says, a little too boldly, maybe, "Can you save the choking me for trials, though?"  
  
The Doctor seems to take it in stride, the laughter cackling sharper. There's a sort of lightness in his demeanor right now that she doesn't think she's imagining. [  I'll attempt not to renege on our agreement again.  ]  
  
They come to the entrance, where, beyond it, the trees and fog await, behind a serene drift of snow coming silently down from the sky. Feng Min steps out into it and tips her head up, feeling snowflakes land on her face as she stares right into the Entity's approximation of night. It feels nice, because her throat is still hot and uncomfortable. She's almost looking forward to the next time she's killed so she won't have to deal with the injury.  
  
The Doctor appears next to her. She sees him look up, as well, as if he's curious to know what she's staring at, until he seems to get it.  
  
[  It seems real, doesn't it?  ]  
  
"Yes," she whispers, and the sadness clutches again at her heart, because she knows it isn't, and as long as she's here, it never will be. She looks up at him. "I... I need to know. Will you ever tell me who he is? Otto Stamper." She now knows that the name is important somehow.  
  
The Doctor looks down at her, his red eye glowing in the shadows. [  Some doors are better left closed.  ]  
  
At the campfire, with one of Jake's scarves wrapped around her bruised and aching throat, Feng Min realizes that he hadn't told her _no._


	7. bitter murmur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Feng Min cries in a shower, because I'm here to give you relatable content. Also, I wanna show you [this art by Tumblr user stablepaddock](https://stablepaddock.tumblr.com/post/180492642794/hey-do-yourself-a-favor-and-read-this-fic-by), which I'm sure you'll recognize is a scene from the last chapter. I love this so much, even though it killed my last two brain cells, but I still managed to finish chapter 7 in a state of confused delight.
> 
> I am very grateful to every person who is following along with this fic. I read every comment even if I don't reply to them all, and you are all so motivating for me. Thank you so much. Hope you like this one!
> 
> ETA: stablepaddock has also illustrated [this scene from chapter 6](https://stablepaddock.tumblr.com/post/180514683494/woah-hey-there-wow-so-uh-that-bit-in-chapter-6) and [this scene from this very chapter](https://stablepaddock.tumblr.com/post/180563322914/yall-know-i-cant-just-let-that-last-stunt-in), which they both completely nailed, and I'm officially all out of brain cells, but I am overwhelmed with how much I adore these. Please check them out and show some love!

They can't make out the title on the sign, even with both flashlight beams focused on it. The paint's so faded away that the bleached wood beneath is all they can really see. No outlines, no indications. A circus with no name.  
  
Feng Min would rather be anywhere else. She'd encountered the Clown only once so far, and just once had been all it took to understand that she didn't want to encounter him again. The vapor he is prone to drugging the survivors with brings the Doctor's static field effect to mind, the way it just _hurts_ in her head, but the Clown's poisonous attributes are much more immediate, more physical.  
  
The whole circus thing creeps her out. _Nothing's sacred to the Entity,_ she thinks, a thought she's had many times before. Maybe this place had existed, once, in the real world, the one on the other side of the veil. It had probably brought joy to many. Laughter had sung here; memories had taken shape and imprint. Sunlight had touched the striped tents. This place once had people in it.  
  
_Now,_ she thinks, _there's only ghosts._  
  
Nea's moving ahead, picking up the stairs of the caravan as though she hasn't got a care in the world, like she's not even a little bit concerned that the Clown might just be waiting inside to ambush intruders. It's happened before to the both of them. They'd been out scavenging with Jake and Meg, and the Hag had come upon them out of nowhere. Even outside of the Entity's need for sacrifice and feeding, the Hag had no reservations about what she wished to do with them. The memory still makes Feng Min's stomach flip— a sharp and clear recollection of what it had felt like to have her abdomen ripped right open by the wretched thing's deformed arm, her guts spilling out of her. To say that the killers are as dangerous outside of trials as they are inside of them is an understatement.  
  
Feng Min can hear Nea whistling inside the trailer, and the sound of things being moved around as she goes through the interior. Feng Min tears her distracted gaze away from the dusty old ticket booth and walks past the target board to see if she can find anything in the crates.  
  
"Holy shit!" Nea's voice breaks through the caravan. A second after that, she steps outside, waving something. "Look what I found!"  
  
For Nea to sound so happy is unusual, so Feng Min's not sure if she _wants_ to see whatever it is, but she gets up and looks. Nea drops a bottle into her hands. It's heavy, the cap sealed, filled with a clear fluid. And the label says it's...  
  
"Gin?" Feng Min reads aloud. It's a shock. How long has it been since she'd tasted alcohol, or anything at all? She can barely believe that the bottle she's holding in her hands is real. She's never even heard of the Entity allowing for anything like this, before. Alcohol. In the Clown's caravan.  
  
"I mean," says Nea, "I _guess_ it could be a trick. Like maybe it's full of chloroform or poison? But I doubt it." She's grinning. "Holy shit. Everyone's gonna freak out. I haven't been drunk in _so_ long. You think it still works the same way here? We gotta find out."  
  
Feng Min is still staring down at the bottle, and then what Nea's saying clicks with her. It's been so long. She's right. So long since she'd just been able to turn her mind off and her autopilot on, bottle through bottle. Night after night.  
  
Suddenly, she's is afraid of it, afraid of how much she wants to taste it again, and she hands it back to Nea. "Yeah," she says, unable to keep the unease out of her face. "The others will be really happy."  
  
Nea seems to notice her expression, because she's giving Feng Min a funny look, but then she's slipping the bottle into her backpack and cinching it tight. "Let's get the hell out of here before Pogo the Clown shows up," she suggests, and Feng Min nods. She gives the horse resting outside a wide berth, just in case, even though the others have said that they haven't known it to be aggressive.  
  
Although she does her best to keep her eyes on Nea's back, Feng Min thinks to herself that she wouldn't entirely mind if the dark mist chose to separate them during their journey back through the forest to the campfire. Just to avoid the temptation. But that's not really something she's ever been good at. She'd always kept her eyes trained on exactly what she wanted. If it meant joining with others to get it, she would. If it meant forging forward alone, she'd do that, too. And if it meant stabbing allies in the back, well, she'd never once hesitated. In both the virtual world and out of it.  
  
Even now, Feng Min notes, she's really only worried about herself. There are so many ways she could express her concerns to Nea. Stop her and say, _Maybe we should just throw it away_ , or _I'd rather stay back here until you're all done drinking_ , or even, _Look, I've been up to something crazy, at that hospital, and I need you to talk me out of it before something really bad happens..._  
  
The sense of impending dread is almost as strong as the instinct to stay silent about it all. Almost. And so she keeps it all in her mouth. Protects her secrets. And swallows. 

  
  
 

"Never have I ever had a fantasy about someone at this campfire," says Meg, sitting back with her legs extended in front of her, looking a little smug.  
  
"That's not fair," says Nea immediately. "Jake isn't here, so Claudette gets a free pass out of this one—" Feng Min's pretty sure she's had more than a few mouthfuls of alcohol, but there doesn't seem to be any real difference between Nea's sober and tipsy selves: she's still completely tactless.  
  
Meg stamps her fists into the log below her. "Don't be an asshole!" she barks, but nearby, Claudette doesn't really seem to be all that embarrassed.  
  
"It's not a secret," she says, shrugging. "If anything, I'd think that Nea would—"  
  
"I get it," Nea interjects, a little too quickly to not come off suspicious, but she extends her hand into the air and then lifts her tin cup to her mouth. Next to her, Ace waves both of his hands in a manner that suggests he may have just been awarded a prize, and Feng Min is pretty sure he's only sitting with them all so that he can drink on every round. A cheerful Kate is taking a sip, too, along with David.  
  
Claudette seems to choose her statement carefully. Eventually, she goes with, "Never have I ever been kicked out of a bar."  
  
Feng Min remains seated right where she is, having chosen not to participate. The compulsion is there, enough that she feels cold and shaky, even though the ambient temperature of the fire never strays from lukewarm and just tolerable. There's too much on her mind already, her thoughts spinning at light speed; there's no energy left, really, to stave off the desire to ask for a drink, but she's stubbornly persisting, anyway. She wishes the game would go by faster.  
  
But if she _were_ to participate, she thinks, she'd have to drink right now.  
  
Ace is happily drinking again. David's just laughing, reaching over to bump their fists together. Feng Min leans forward and draws her knees to her chest, lets her head tip onto her crossed arms like she's tired. It's hard to tune out all of the chatter, though. She sits there, telling herself that it's just another test of endurance. Most tests like this hurt. 

  
  
 

Feng Min waits until everyone else has fallen asleep to go wandering in the Entity's black web, and then she carefully gets up. She crouches next to one of the storage chests a survivor had dragged there many campfires ago and reaches for a pair of gloves. She's not sure whose they are; clothing tends to be passed around to whoever will fit it, and it's never been hard to scavenge for. A survival situation like theirs is no time or place to be picky about about that kind of thing. When so much has been taken from you, Feng Min muses, a little seems to go a long way. She feels bitter when she thinks about the sad sort of gratitude that fills her whenever she finds something as simple as a battery or a pouch of chalk out there in the fog. Her life has come to mean so little to the world, and the world has come to mean so little to her life.  
  
She slips into the forest with purpose, this time, a focus honed quietly during the hours she'd spent waiting out the others, watching the bottle empty, counting to sixty beneath her breath cyclically. She'd passed the test. She knows she should feel good about that. She doesn't; she wishes she'd caved.  
  
The dark mist is not relenting tonight. It takes her down a winding path that doesn't end, circling through the same patterns of trees over and over, each configuration of branches changing every time she looks away. It feels like it makes her walk through the fog for hours, struggling to see in the dark, hearing the branches snap beneath her sneakers, the rustle and growl and whisper of something that never once chooses to come into sight, but remains in step with her, ensuring that she keeps moving.  
  
She strains to listen. _Really_ listen, without her ears. The static. She'll know it when she feels it, and she tells herself, tells the _Entity_ , if it's listening, that she'll just keep walking until she gets there. Not even exhaustion can kill her in this world, after all.  
  
The forest relents after a mass of time that Feng Min can't divine any chronological order from. She feels an incredible sort of release of tension as the snow comes upon her, and then the glowing form of the complex itself, and she's glad to leave the fog at her back, stepping through the front doors to peel her gloves off and take a quick look down the hallway.  
  
He's here. It's not very distinct, flooded by the static that fills every room, but she can feel it. He's definitely here. Feng Min goes down the hallway she thinks is closest to its direction, and then she stops under one of the security cameras. Its red eye is on, unblinking.  
  
Feeling somewhat foolish, she stands up on her tiptoes and hops, waving her arms at the camera. "You there?" she calls out, mostly facetiously.  
  
The camera turns in her direction, readjusting the lens focus upon her with a buzz. Feng Min startles, falling back onto her heels, and quickly turns her face away from it.  
  
"That— that's _creepy,_ " she says, almost petulantly, in her embarrassment. "Can you just come out?"  
  
She doesn't really expect a reply, but she jumps again when the Doctor's voice slips right into her head, making her whirl around, searching for where he might be. Has he been standing behind her?  
  
[  I'll be a moment.  ]  
  
No, he's not behind her. And he's not up or down the hallway, either, as far as she can see. Feng Min stands there with her arms crossed, sneaking a glance up at the camera now and then. As far as she has been able to tell, the cameras don't seem to connect to anything. There doesn't appear to be any sort of monitoring space for them in the hospital, unlike the security room at the meatpacking plant. At least not one she's had access to.  
  
She feels the Doctor's static field long before she hears his footsteps or gets her eyes on him. It's numbing today, neither painful nor particularly enjoyable, but it provides enough space for her to think. She notes that he's still wearing the nasal tube he'd had on the last time she'd seen him. He seems worse for wear, somehow, his breathing more audible. Or maybe she's just becoming more attuned to it.  
  
Not feeling comfortable with courtesies like, _Hello, how are you,_ Feng Min tears her eyes from his grotesque face and says, by way of greeting, "I haven't stolen anything today."  
  
[  Yet,  ] the Doctor says, eyeing her, his arms folded over his chest.  
  
"Yet," Feng Min agrees, nodding, a nervous, ill-advised little laugh coming out of her mouth.  
  
[  And you won't,  ] he continues. He does not elaborate with justifications. He seems to be trusting her to understand the consequences; she does.  
  
Feng Min just nods, slipping her hands in her pockets and staring at his pocket watch. He is so very big, this supreme predator, that the long chain is nearly eye-level with her. She reaches up to rub at her throat beneath the scarf.  
  
[  We'll be trying something different today,  ] he says, and he walks away. Feng Min hurries to follow. [  I've realized that navigating your cerebral cortex will be much easier if you're unconscious.  ]  
  
And, with that, Feng Min comes to a stop again. _Unconscious._ He stops, too, turning to look at her with what she thinks might be annoyance, if he could make any other expression.  
  
"I don't know if I'm okay wi—" she starts.  
  
[  Yes, you are,  ] he says, his voice little more than a soft hum blooming and dissipating like smoke in her mind. It brightens the static in her brain, makes it shine like the flame of a candle. The way he says it makes her think, _Yes, I am, I'm okay with it_ , tells her that it's alright for just a moment, that she can _trust_ him—  
  
What's happening to her? Something in his voice, in the noise, is picking at her will. Feng Min focuses, scowling, sucks in a whistling breath. The static goes dull again. She uneasily moves to keep up with him as he starts walking again. "I'll listen to the details," she finally says, telling herself to be careful, that this might be the time she really comes to regret it.  
  
The only response the Doctor grants her is the glitchy laughter. He's reaching for something on the wall, and when Feng Min hears a bell, she's startled to find that it's the door of an elevator opening before her.  
  
The idea that Léry's Memorial Institute might have a second floor had only come to her fleetingly. She'd noticed before the way the windows on the outside of the building were lit all the way up to the roof, much higher than the ceilings she and the other survivors had been made to wander beneath during trials, like the one she stood beneath now.  
  
But... an _elevator._ She's never seen one here before. She's sure there _hasn't_ been one here before. Not for her, anyway.  
  
The Doctor's waiting for her to get inside, and so, overcoming her shock, Feng Min does. It's a very old model, at least by her standards, and it's uncomfortably narrow, with a wall and floor made from some kind of wood paneling. The buttons are all brass. She experiences a very surreal moment when the Doctor steps inside next to her and sort of has to lean over so his head doesn't hit the ceiling. She'd laugh if she didn't feel so weird right now, or if she wasn't certain that he would not take kindly to it.  
  
For about twenty cramped seconds, Feng Min has to stand right next to the killer, her shoulder sort of pressing into his side, trying to pretend that it isn't. She can feel the little tremors that come off of him from the ever-moving circuit throughout his body, causing uncomfortable twinges in the muscles of her shoulder. If that's enough to feel painful for her, she wonders again what the wires inside his body must feel like.  
  
He gets out of the elevator before she does, and Feng Min sort of wants to hit the _1_ button and go back to the first floor, which is still a frightening place, but at least it'd be a frightening place she sort of knows. She gets out, though, and looks around.  
  
The second floor appears as nondescript as the first, on an initial glance. It has the same pale walls and cracked floors. There's more damage to the ceiling here, letting through small piles of snow that have gathered before the elevator lobby. The floor beneath her soles is icy, so she treads carefully.  
  
"What's up here?" she asks, curiosity winning over caution.  
  
[  This was mostly a restricted area,  ] the Doctor says. [  Now, it's just a poor copy.  ]  
  
"A copy?" Feng Min looks up into his face as they move beneath a sign that reads _DEBRIEFING_ off to one direction and _PROCESSING_ off to another.  
  
[  _This_ place is nothing like the real Léry's was. It was a research facility like none other in its time. The advancements made here were beyond ordinary human comprehension. ] The electricity takes on a new glow, icing the walls and ceiling. [  Technology that could have freed all humanity.  ]  
  
The Doctor's voice in her head is even and completely lacking in any emphasis, so she doesn't how to place how he might feel about it, if he feels anything at all, if the truth is what he's telling her now. But Feng Min's struggling to reconcile statements like these with her growing realization that this place is not a hospital at all. _Was_ not a hospital at all.  
  
"What do you mean... could have?" she finally asks, having decided that directly asking, _what technology?_ isn't going to elicit any answers that make sense.  
  
[  That information has been lost permanently.  ] There's a sort of warning in his tone: _don't ask for more._ Fair enough.  
  
The Doctor's got his back to her, opening the door to a room with a placard so faded she can't tell what it was once supposed to say.  
  
Inside is a sort of recovery room, as cramped as the ones she's seen downstairs, with something Feng Min first mistakes for a hook set up in the corner. This causes her to freeze in the doorway, feeling her heart stop, but then she realizes that it's not a hook at all. It's some sort of piece of equipment she doesn't know and can't identify. There are a lot of cables and tubes running through it, hung up on the raised arm like an IV line.  
  
[  You're going to go to sleep here,  ] says the Doctor matter-of-factly, crossing over to the machine. [  I'll first connect you to the monitoring equipment, and once you're asleep, I'll be able to examine your brain activity.  ]  
  
Feng Min blanches. Sleeping _here_. Right in one of the killer's realms. Right on a floor she doesn't know the layout of, hooked up to some machine she knows nothing about, at the whims of a man who had literally killed her before. How could he even expect her to fall asleep in the first place?  
  
The Doctor starts laughing. It must be the look on her face.  
  
[  I would have thought you'd be grateful for a bed to lay on,  ] he observes, the electricity jumping from shoulder to shoulder with the staccato laughter.  
  
Feng Min looks at it. He's right. Just thinking of being able to lay down on something soft is a luxury that has gone extinct. She's become used to the cold, hard ground by the campfire, to their uncomfortable nylon sleeping bags, refusing to huddle for warmth with any of the others. Here is a bed — albeit one covered in the same stains as any other, here — and she hates how persuasive just the promise of that comfort is. It's so much more tempting than even the alcohol had been.  
  
"What exactly are you going to do while I'm asleep?" she asks, trying and failing not to sound sulky, nibbling anxiously on her bottom lip and deliberately refusing to meet eye contact.  
  
[  Nothing I wouldn't rather do to you if you were conscious,  ] he says immediately, the laughter reaching a vicious pitch before cutting out entirely as he steps out of the room with no indication that he needs her to follow, leaving her to absorb that comment with an expression of great frustration and a squirm in her gut.  
  
Agitated and unsettled, she sort of paces the room a little, before she notices something: a shower stall in the corner. There's no curtain over it, or anything— it's just a tiled stall, like the repetitive ones she's used to seeing downstairs. It's dry and dusty, and when she steps into it and reaches for the knob absentmindedly, she's not really expecting anything to happen.  
  
But then water blasts down onto her. Real water, clear and freezing cold but then quickly growing warm, and then hot and hotter.  
  
Feng Min stands there, her mouth slightly open, the shower head pouring down upon her, running down her face and chin and soaking through the front of her shirt, plastering her sweater to her body and saturating her jeans. So hot it's almost burning, making her flesh smart beneath her clothes.  
  
Hot water. It's been so long.  
  
She crumples down on her knees at the drain, the water splashing down her hair and soaking it heavily against her neck and shoulders. It pools in her lap, sending clouds of steam up into her face.  
  
All human comforts. All human dignity. Just feeling warm water for the first time in what feels like— fuck, for what feels like _eternity_ , makes Feng Min fully and truly understand, physically, all that the Entity has taken from her.  
  
She lowers her hands into it, places them palm down right on either side of the drain, watching the water swirl down and away. She starts to cry, despite herself. Silently, the tears lost in the warm spray.  
  
Feng Min hears the static come together behind her— stronger, for just a moment, before fading out again. She remains where she is, slumping against the tiled wall, and closes her eyes. She doesn't know how long she sits there in her sodden clothes under the water, but it's long enough that she only gets up when she feels it start to turn warm, and then cold.  
  
She gets to her feet, encumbered by clothes heavy with water. Grimacing, she reaches to shut the tap off, and is immediately aware of just how cold it is in the hospital. She tries to wring as much as she can out of her sweater and sort of squeezes spots on her jeans to try to get it out. A puddle forms beneath her as she steps out, at a loss on what to do about how cold she is now. She's turning towards one of the treatment beds, reaching for the ratty old blanket, when she notices a folded pile of fabric on top.  
  
Clothes. He's left her clothes...? Astonishment overwhelms.  
  
Shivering, Feng Min picks the pile up and shakes it out. She's not sure what she's holding at first. A hospital gown?  
  
_No,_ she thinks. There's a top, and there's pants, and the pale blue color makes her think at first that they might be scrubs. But then she brings the worn, laundered fabric closer to her face, into the light, and sees the faded lettering on the breast. Not lettering— numbers.  
  
She lowers the top as she realizes just what these clothes make her think of, feeling sick, but she's freezing, so she picks up the pants, too, and then looks around uncertainly.  
  
There are two security cameras in the room. One points out from a corner, but the other is trained directly on her. Feng Min tries to pull the privacy curtain around the bed, but it's ripped almost in half, and she can't find an angle at which the camera won't see her.  
  
She stares up into it, feeling exasperated, but then her discomfort becomes too much. The wet clothes feel like they're freezing to her body. Looking up at the camera, Feng Min says, mostly for her own sake, "If you're watching, I'm going to figure out how to kill you."  
  
And then she struggles to get her clothes off. They're heavy and stuck to her skin. Her jeans especially are a challenge; the water has turned the blood and mud stains on them into a gross, paste-like combination, and once she's fought to get them off, she has to rinse her legs in the shower again. With another furtive look at the camera's steady red eye, she peels her shirt and underwear off and then quickly hurries to put the clothes on.  
  
They're too big for her. There's no drawstring to pull the pants tight around her narrow waist. She manages to use a hair elastic to sort of knot them at her hip, which keeps them up. She's swimming in the top, but she's not wet any more, and that's all that matters. She leans over to use her hands to shake the water out of her hair before she goes to the door and looks out into the hallway, trying to sense for him.  
  
"Hello?" she calls.  
  
There's no response, but then he turns the corner, holding a book under his arm.  
  
"Um," she starts, with a torturous sense of embarrassment, "thanks." She tugs on the oversized top, tries to ignore the imprint of numbers on it.  
  
[  If you compromise your health with sudden temperature changes, I won't be able to get a proper reading,  ] is all he says, but the look he's giving her — his one good eye flicking over her body — is somehow significant. He motions for her to head back into the room, and she does. She's hung her wet clothes up in a locker, and thinks of how funny Nea would find it if she told her she'd used a locker here as an actual _locker_ instead of a hiding place, but she's again reminded of just how much she needs to keep held under her tongue. How much may be at stake.  
  
Feng Min watches as the Doctor brings the machine to life with what she's pretty sure is a straight jolt of electricity from his body right into the machinery. Watching him, she supposes that there's no real use in going to the effort to plug something in when you're an indefinite source of energy yourself.  
  
She takes a seat on the bed. It's soft, as she both hoped and feared it might be. She tests it with her hands, bouncing a little in place when he isn't looking. Very soft.  
  
The Doctor sits across the room before a monitor, inputting commands that Feng Min can't make out. The physical distance between herself and him makes her feel more bold, so she says, "This isn't a hospital, is it?"  
  
He looks up. He's got his legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, sort of sitting sideways to the monitor. [  I was wondering when you'd ask. ]  
  
"I've been thinking it for a while," she confesses, allowing herself to look up at him in the shadowed corner, the only hint of light coming from the monitor and his luminous eye. "This is some kind of..." Her mouth goes dry.  
  
The killer before her simply stares at her. Feng Min shakes her head, a little too urgently, too quickly.  
  
[  Some kind of what, Feng Min?  ] The Doctor gets up. He is so very tall, blocking out the lights, two steps taking him right before her, in front of the bed. He looks down at her. He does not kneel or crouch or so much as lean towards her. Just stands above her, like a statue, a deity's idol, silently demanding that she prostrate herself before him.  
  
"A prison," she whispers. "The cameras, and the restraints. All of this _stuff..._ It all looks like it's designed to hurt people." She's got her gaze turned down away from his face, from the dark grimace of his mouth.  
  
[  Are you afraid?  ] comes the voice, plainly, scrubbed of all emotion. The Doctor's hand has come up before her, and it moves to stroke through her hair again in that unhesitating, intrusive manner of his. His sparking fingertips spread out across her scalp, causing a pleasurable little tingle that burrows beneath her skull and ripples over her thoughts. She sways into him, pressing her head into his palm.  
  
"No," she breathes, and she realizes that she's not lying. She's not scared, and maybe _that's_ the part that should scare her. A prison. She knows it now. People had suffered here. _Died_ here, probably, long before this facility had come to house the Entity's sacrifices. Likely — all too likely, more likely than she wants to know — because of him. So much information is spilling out before her, but she's still missing the crucial puzzle pieces she needs to slot it all together.  
  
Feng Min imagines, for a moment, his hand coming up over her face, shocking her dead again, or closing around her throat to squeeze the life from her, or for him to employ that cruelly spiked weapon of his.  
  
The Doctor doesn't do any of those things. He just strokes her hair, silent, then he pulls her head to his abdomen, her cheek and ear pressed to his hard stomach. She's stiff at first, not understanding, but then he doesn't do anything else, so she just sits there leaning into him, not daring to move her hands from her lap. She can't hear anything but a mute humming coming from deep inside of him. He's solid and surprisingly warm, his fingers tense atop her head.  
  
[  You're being truthful,  ] the voice murmurs, the strength and clarity of the words flaring in and out, having apparently scanned her thoughts. [  That makes you even more foolish than I thought.  ]  
  
He lets her go, taking the warmth with him. Feng Min sits back, nodding weakly. Her heart's racing. "I never said I was making the right choice by coming here," she says.  
  
[  And yet here you are.  ] He's pulling up a chair next to the bed. [  Lie down.  ]  
  
Feng Min doesn't feel anywhere close to sleepy, and doubts that she will any time soon in his presence, but she obeys, mostly because the bed isn't fully reclined anyway. She settles back against it, and the Doctor crosses back over to the machinery on the other side of the wall. He comes back with some sort of thing in his hands that's dragging three different wires. Feng Min stares at it, mistaking it at first for the rig attached to his own head, but the design of it is a sort of circlet wired with sensors. She doesn't see anything sharp sticking out of it, which, she supposes, might be as good as it gets here.  
  
"I have to put that on, don't I?" she asks listlessly, staring at it. The Doctor laughs a little at her face, and she leans forward as he fits it over her head. There's an uncomfortable feeling as he adjusts the fit of it, bringing it tight down against her temples and forehead.  
  
[  This one doesn't even hurt,  ] he admonishes. He begins the meticulous work of finding places for electrodes on her scalp, parting her hair in different sections to find the points he needs. By the time he's finished, Feng Min is positive she won't be able to fall asleep, not just because of his presence but because the whole arrangement is so uncomfortable.  
  
She moves back against the pillows, trying to pretend she's not anxious, and watches him as he works at the monitor. Then he comes back to the chair next to the bed and sits down. He's dragging a cable behind him; it's inserted in the same spot in his neck he'd used last time.  
  
[  Sleep,  ] he says, staring at her.  
  
"What?" Feng Min says immediately, staring back. "I can't just fall asleep like that."  
  
[  When?  ] The Doctor sounds a bit impatient.  
  
"I don't know?" Feng Min purses her lips at him. "Can't you just zap me unconscious?" She points at her forehead.  
  
The Doctor starts laughing. [  Oh, I could. I'd love to. But it might alter the data.  ] He's got the book on his lap. She can't make out the title on the spine.  
  
"Fine," she says, huffing, and because he seems to be in something adjacent to a decent mood, she says, "Leave." Her pointing finger drifts to the door.  
  
[  It doesn't work that way, either,  ] he says, and he still sounds amused. [  Although I understand that my face can't be easy to fall asleep next to.  ]  
  
"No, it's not," says Feng Min, unable to contest the point, but a wild surge of playfulness, the sort that's always gotten her in trouble before, has her asking, "Can you face the wall or something?" Quickly, she adds, "I'm just kidding."  
  
[  You almost hurt the feelings I don't have,  ] he says mildly, turning his attention down to the book. He's got it held down low on his lap, and the way he's staring at it seems familiar, somehow, until she deduces the reason. She shifts forward and tries to catch his eye.  
  
"You need glasses, don't you?" she asks, surprised.  
  
The Doctor only hums at first. [  My power enables me to see more clearly than anyone.  ]  
  
That's probably true, Feng Min thinks, because he is an incredibly effective hunter; she's seen that for herself, proved it with her own blood, and heard it from the other survivors. But he hadn't denied it, either. Ironic, she realizes, that his eyes are permanently pried open, even though he can't see very well.  
  
"I wonder what you look like in glasses," she presses, inching forward into the bed rail to lean towards him.  
  
[  I wonder what you look like asleep,  ] the Doctor says pointedly, not raising his eyes from the book.  
  
Feng Min snorts. "Your bedside manner sucks."  
  
[  I'm not that sort of doctor,  ] he says, finally looking up at her. [  The compromise you've negotiated has eliminated many of my usual methods.  ]  
  
"You mean torture," says Feng Min. The more she sits here, listening to the steady static and vibrations of the monitoring equipment, the bolder she feels. He's _letting_ her push it, she realizes. He's actually allowing this.  
  
[  Torture? How gauche,  ] he says, a sort of growl coming out of his throat. The electricity sparks on top of his head, sending little flickers of light down to the floor. [  It's _experimentation._ I specialize in interrogative and disciplinary techniques.  ]  
  
"Same thing," she challenges. Her heart's going pretty fast, telling her to slow the fuck down, to be careful, to not push things so far that she slips off the edge.  
  
The Doctor stares at her, a loud breath shuddering between his teeth. [  You've got quite the mouth on you,  ] he says, and he almost sounds impressed, she thinks, but maybe she's just imagining it. [  What does it take to shut you up, since you've insisted that I'm not to harm you?  ]  
  
Feng Min can't come up with something to say right away, her cheeks coloring pink at _quite the mouth on you._ Biting her lip, she tries not to grin as she says, "You're supposed to be smart, aren't you? You'll figure it out."  
  
[  Oh, I will. I plan on figuring you out completely,  ] the voice in her head slips to her, and, in tandem, the Doctor's head tips towards one shoulder in a languid manner, his eye fixed upon her. There's a sort of force, a kind of _intent_ in the way he says it, that kills off any follow-up Feng Min might have been able to come up with. Rendered vulnerable by this remark, and seeing that now is the time to pull back, she just reaches for the blankets, pulling them up over her body, and abruptly changes the subject.  
  
"Can I lay on my side?" she asks, and when he nods, Feng Min lowers herself to try to get comfortable, facing towards his chair. It takes a bit to find a place for her head on the pillow with all of the wires woven between her hair, but she eventually settles, watching him leaf through the book. He seems to be a quick reader; she's following his finger as it moves up and down the pages. She tries to listen only to the dull static, to the faint wind carrying the snow in through the cracks in the roof top. She knows that she needs to let herself sink into the black. She wants answers. She really does. But, as she finally says aloud after an unsuccessful period of trying to fall asleep, "I don't think you're going to find anything."  
  
[  Why even be here, if that's what you think?  ] the Doctor asks, his fingertips stopping over a passage. There is no detectable emotion in the words.  
  
Feng Min doesn't know how to answer. She just stares at the sideways view of him from her place on the first bed she's slept on in months or maybe years or decades or lifetimes; she doesn't actually know. He'd made this comfort accessible to her, hadn't he? She's still not sure what the total cost will be to her after all of this. Because she knows that it's going to cost her, sooner or later. She always ends up pushing herself too far and losing everything. She hasn't thought about what she's going to do once they either solve or give up on this thing. And she doesn't think it's going to come to anything, anyway.  
  
So why is she here?  
  
"I keep hoping," she says, and she doesn't know how to finish the sentence, doesn't know what she's been hoping for. She closes her eyes. The electricity coming off of his body is bright enough to show her the warm red of her blood through her eyelids.  
  
The Doctor doesn't have any additional questions. She listens to him turning pages, floating the warm sea of static in his immediate radius, wading and wallowing within its frequencies, knowing its wavelengths. She envisions yellow, then red, then black, and, finally, sleeplessly, the whispers usher her in.

   
  


It's 2013 and your Twitter just passed ten thousand followers. It'll be more than twenty times that number soon. It's 2002 and for the first time you shout _I hate you_ at your mother, lashing out as a child does. It's 2014 and you say it again, and you think that you _really_ might mean it this time, because she won't just be _happy_ for you. It hurts you intensely that you've never heard either of your parents say, _I'm proud._ You don't go back to visit for more than a year. It's 2008 and nobody's taking you seriously. No one wants to practice co-op games with a teenage truant known for pulling twelve-hour stretches at Internet cafés and a dream that the other regulars not so kindly call _unrealistic_. A _little girl,_ they call you, _little girl,_ and you have to nod and smile like you think it's funny even though on the inside you're fucking angry, because you're small, and they're big, and you hate that you've always got something to prove. It's 2009 and you decide that you're going to show them all.  
  
It's 2017 and you think that you probably overdosed last night, but you're too scared to go to the hospital and confirm it, so you stay inside all weekend, sick and half-conscious, waiting for it to pass through your system. It does, but barely. It's 2016 and you don't know it yet, but you're about to make one mistake that sets off a chain of events that eventually ruins your life. It's 2011, the last year you think you actually felt happy. Really, genuinely happy, with no conditions attached. It's 2015, and everyone loves you, the _Shining Lion,_ the _world champion,_ just like you've always wanted, like you always dreamed, but you still wish that you were anyone except you. You'd expected happiness after reaching the top. A life fulfilled. You only feel empty.  
  
It's ???? and today you died because a man with a chainsaw and a butcher's apron sawed you in half. It's ???? and you know that it's kind of pointless, but you still sometimes wonder how you died before you ended up here in Hell. Maybe you wandered into traffic, or maybe you passed out drunk and hit your head on the way down. Or maybe you finally found the thing you'd been searching for all along in those bars and back streets, the thing you'd dressed yourself up every night to go looking for, whether you knew it or not. Eventually, you stop thinking about it. It doesn't matter now. It's ???? and you're watching someone be disemboweled in the powerful grip of a cold-blooded maniac, right before your eyes, and it's a good thing you've already learned not to react. Not to feel. You can't help them. You can only run and hide. It's ???? and you wish you'd killed yourself back in the real world when you still had a chance of actually making it stick.  
  
It's ???? and the gaps in your memory only get wider every day. You keep records and write notes for yourself, warnings and reminders written in flurries of manic activity that you have difficulty deciphering later. You cannot keep track of how much it has taken from you. It's ???? and you can see what Sally is becoming. How it's all begun to drain out of her. You see your future. _Everyone,_ she says. _Everyone, eventually._ It's ???? and there's no way to undo it. Not that it could kill you. It's 1975 and you're declared the director, the conclusion to an inevitability. A means to an end. It's 1982 and you know that it will take a long time for your actions and decisions to be fully understood, but one day, the world will thank you. It's 1954 and for the first time someone notices your potential. Tells you that you have a gift.  
  
It's 1965 and the telegram from overseas, addressed to _next of kin_ , says that he has died, and that's it; no body comes home. Your father is gone, and you're set adrift. It's 1972 and it's starting to become less difficult. You don't look away any more. You stop asking questions. You just do the work asked of you. You're reminded repeatedly that what you're doing is important. Fully sanctioned. Heroic, even. The more you push the limits, the more they approve. It's 1956 and you always prefer to spend time playing chess, the both of you, maybe because it's the one thing you both approach in the same way. By tactic, method. It's when you understand one another best.  
  
It's 1980 and you've figured out exactly which part of the human brain needs to be stimulated and the exact wavelength that must be used to elicit the response you've been seeking for so long. You believe it's your breakthrough, but you will learn otherwise soon. It's 1962 and your immediate supervisors are all astonished by your potential, this athletic-looking but bookish kid just out of high school. They tell you that you have the potential to change the world; you tell them that you intend to. It's 1977 and you rarely leave the facility any more. There is no longer any reason to. It's 1959 and you're standing in the garage with your father holding the letter from _Partisan_ and he tells you — his hands on your shoulders, as though saying, _I'm talking to you man to man_ — that you need to take advantage of every opportunity you get, because you're going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else to prove yourself. That moment becomes your most distinctive memory of him.  
  
It's 1966 and you move back home for a while to help your mother care for your younger brothers. She hadn't asked you to, but you saw that they all needed you, and your studies could wait. It's 1983 and you know what you must do. You _must_. You have the answer. You've awakened. It's 1969 and for the last time someone notices your potential. Tells you that they need your gifts.  
  
It's 1974, and you're starting to hear things. The way crazy people do. But they're not voices. They're whispers. Whispers in a language that does not exist. And that's how you know. You know that you're not crazy.

   
  


Feng Min wakes up with a shriek of pain, her senses focused on the stabbing sensation in her brain that's violently ripped her out of sleep. She claws at the device on her head, panicking, but the pain quickly begins to ebb away, as if it's decided to let her breathe again. Her chest heaving, she looks around in confusion before remembering exactly where she is.  
  
Her head's throbbing. It feels like her very mind has been scalded, burned by an assault of memories that were definitely not hers. She can't even comprehend what has just happened; she's too shocked and overwhelmed. She looks up to the chair at the side of the bed. The Doctor is asleep. Or at least she thinks he is; his one eye is still open. But it's completely unfocused, and the slackness in his posture and the steadiness of his breathing has her convinced he's out.  
  
Feng Min gets out of bed, extricating herself from the wires to stand there anxiously, and then she tries to wake him, feeling with absolute certainty that what had just happened was _not_ a part of the experiment. She reaches out to shake his shoulder, but before her fingers even brush him, a spark leaps out and burns her. Feng Min yelps and looks for another solution, and then sees the cable at the back of his neck again.  
  
_He's not a computer,_ she tells herself. _You can't just unplug him and plug him back in._  
  
Or maybe she can. Steeling herself, Feng Min grabs it and tugs. It snaps free. The Doctor comes to with a start. It takes him much less time to absorb the situation than it had for Feng Min; the moment he sits up, he appears alert, turning to look at her.  
  
It takes a moment, but then she sees it on his face. It's in incredibly subtle ways, twitches of the muscle against the painful gear that's attached to his skull, but she knows she was right. He hadn't intended this.  
  
How long had they been asleep? How much had she seen? Feng Min can barely make sense of all of the information that has just invaded her mind.  
  
( _It's 1970 and you think that this might be how you can help your country make things right again_ )  
  
"Your memories," says Feng Min blankly.  
  
She's never seen the Doctor wear the mood he seems to be in now. He's up from the chair, pacing over to the equipment on the opposite side of the room, not acknowledging what she'd said, but she's not going to let it go that easily, because she needs to know what the hell just happened.  
  
"I saw what I saw," she says, stubbornly, pulling the electrodes out of her hair as she follows him across the floor, barefoot and trailing wires. "Unless you can take it back, it's already done."  
  
The Doctor's hand goes up before her, a warning. _Stop._ There's threat in his posture, the way he's turned towards her, and she thinks that he might be considering reneging on their agreement after all.  
  
Feng Min stops short, just at arm's length, and chances just one more thing. Just one.  
  
"You heard it," she says, and the impossible truth that follows is weighted with fear, with wonder. "The Entity. You were hearing it in the real world."  
  
He's as still as marble, a morbid sculpture before her. [  Another man lived that life.  ]  
  
"No. _You_ did," says Feng Min, quietly. "What difference does it make if you tell me about it or not? Who am I going to tell?" She spreads her hands out in front of herself, palms up. Staring into his agonized face, she doesn't know why she's doing this. Why she's pushing at him this way. He's been right with every assessment he's made of her so far; she's foolish, self-loathing, destructive. There's nothing real for her to gain here. Nothing that won't bring her pain in the end.  
  
He may have been a person once, but there's a reason that he's not any more.  
  
The Doctor considers her. It seems that he's thinking about something.  
  
Eventually, he says, [  I'm concerned only with repeating the experiment properly.  ]  
  
Feng Min looks up at him through her eyelashes, expressionless, but disappointment sinks down her spine and holds her in place. And then frustration follows— the insistence that she can't fail. That this all has to come to mean something, or there won't have been a point to any of it, nothing to keep her from falling completely into the black hole of despair waiting for her and every other survivor at the end of all hope.  
  
"I'll stay another night," she says finally. Sets her jaw. Fixes her gaze, doesn't blink. "And by the end of it, I'm going to know your name."  
  
This makes him pause, and there is something like resentment but also yielding in his tone. [  You should watch that mouth of yours, ] he warns. The monitor before him turns off, blinking to black, and he brushes past her to exit the room, leaving her standing there alone, still hooked up to the wires.  
  
And yet.  
  
It's still there. The static he's left behind him. Calling to her, like it always does. Trying to pull her along and into it, over to him. Asking her to follow. She can feel it. She knows it.  
  
There's a reason she's here. A reason she's been led to him. She's going to learn it.


	8. dark sense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this chapter up yesterday, but even though it's a little shorter than my usual installments, it's an important one, so I took a little more time editing it. I hope you like it! 
> 
> As always, I want to know what you think! You're welcome to leave a comment or swing by my [Tumblr](http://raycats.tumblr.com/) if you've got the time. Feedback means the world to me!

The cameras of Léry's Memorial Institute never seem to shut off. Although the lights on the ceilings consistently flicker and sparking wires spill from the walls like the building's vital organs have been exposed, the security cameras' red lights never once blink out. Feng Min starts to think that they're all rotating to look at her every time she's facing another direction. The static dimming her thoughts is the only thing keeping paranoia at bay, at this point.  
  
She hasn't been able to figure out where the Doctor had gone to after she'd been transferred a portion of his memories. The steady static atmosphere of the facility grounds shows no signs of disturbance, even though she walks one end of the building to another to see if something sends that familiar jolt into her brain, letting her know, _it's him— he's here_. There's no shift in the balance of the noise layer, which makes her think he's left the facility grounds completely and gone somewhere else within the fog.  
  
So Feng Min has started wandering the halls instead, having stubbornly decided to wait him out until he returns. She can only assume that if the cameras are looking upon her, then the Doctor surely is, too, so if she ends up wandering somewhere she shouldn't, she'll know to expect that he might be watching. She'd told him she'd intended to stay another night, wanting her questions answered— a suicidal declaration, at best. But there's this pervasive sense of _what if,_ a compulsion so powerful that it engulfs all rhyme or reason. She must stay. She must know. No matter how many times it kills her.  
  
Her mind has been tripping through the same series of foreign memories for the past several hours, struggling to disentangle his thoughts from hers. They sit there in her head like painful lesions; she thinks she'd try to dig them out with an ice pick if she were handed one right now. She cannot think his thoughts, because she isn't him, and yet here they are in her mind, intrusive and painful and profoundly disconcerting. Their associated emotions had flashed through her like rays of light, _joy grief wrath pride determination anger obsession love loss,_ so much emotional information that she can't separate it all, even now. She feels absolutely exhausted by the experience.  
  
Feng Min knows that if she doesn't try to preserve the information somehow, she won't be able to trust her memory later. No— her memory of his memory. She's already losing track of all of the information in her head as she tries to reconcile it all. The details are all running together as she tries to hold onto them. Paper isn't hard to come by in the hospital; she finds some in the next room over, which is some sort of study, or maybe a meeting room. There's a tattered old map mounted on one wall, but she doesn't recognize the area, and many of the details have rubbed away.  
  
In quick, untidy writing, she takes a few notes with a dull No. 2 pencil, trying to purge everything she knows before her memory disregards what it had seen. She jots down the things that stood out to her the most, but she underlines only two words, the most startling thing she had observed in his memories: _the whispers_. When she's finished writing, she peels the top part off from the yellow carbon copy beneath and folds them up together.  
  
Feng Min locates her clothes in the locker she'd hung them to dry in. The shower keeps her lingering in the room for a little bit, dithering. She wants to step into it and blast the hot water and have a real shower for the first time in fucking forever, soap or no soap, but then she remembers what it had felt like yesterday, and the longing in her heart for the comfort of warmth makes her feel overwhelmingly weak. What gives her the right to selfishly indulge while she's out investigating a killer, while the rest of the survivors are out there trying to stay warm, covered in blood and dirt? She tells herself to pull it together. That caving in to stuff like this isn't going to help her keep the clear head she needs to survive. It's with a sort of rigidness that she pulls her clothes back on without reaching for the tap.  
  
She should've brought some kind of bag with her. She's going to have to do that next time. Nea's often carrying a backpack, even into trials, and Claudette keeps her tinctures in a light leather satchel, but Feng Min doesn't like the feeling of anything weighing her down, so she usually leaves hers behind. But with all the sneaking she's been doing lately, maybe it's time she should get used to it.  
  
After one more walk around the perimeter hallways trying to sense for the Doctor, something finally disturbs the calm sheet of static in the air. Feng Min's startled to learn that the signal is radiating from beyond the exit, straight into the dense fog and thick trees. Staring it down, she doesn't feel very good about what that bodes, but, determined to follow through on what she'd said to him (sworn? promised? threatened?), she walks into the forest.  
  
Crows sound their lamentations around her. It feels like each of them is watching her from their places at the top of the trees, their black eyes gleaming in the dark. She knows that they aren't real animals. They're just illusions of the Entity's. That makes her wonder if it's watching her now. Does it know what she's doing, or why? Can it sense the static like she does?  
  
If she thinks about it too much, she fears that she might bring it too close to her mind and let it in. There must be consequences for all of this, somewhere. She just hasn't foreseen them yet.  
  
The Crotus Prenn Asylum becomes apparent through the fog before anything else does, its distinctive shape and stained glass windows caught in the moonlight, glowing through the mist with the luster of an aurora. Here, the noise has stopped fluctuating, building up to a tremor pulling her towards its epicenter.  
  
_Why here? Why is he here?_ Because she knows he is, that he _must_ be, without having to see him with her own eyes to confirm it. She's started to memorize the texture the static leaves in her brain, to accept it when it comes over her. She knows that the Doctor is here. Their inexplicable connection tells her so.  
  
But she doesn't know how to approach, or if she even _should_. The wavelength is pulling her strongly towards the asylum itself, but she doesn't want to just go charging in, not knowing yet if the Nurse is present on the grounds. The high odds of a deadly encounter with the elusive attendant of the building makes Feng Min hesitate. Eventually, compelled by the precision of the static, she tells herself that she really has no choice but to go inside and find the source of it.  
  
The tangle of hallways making up the only portion left of the building throws her off, at first. There's a salient sort of anticipation in her body despite how risky all of this is. She doesn't know why he's here, and she definitely doesn't know if he's okay with her seeking him out now, let alone away from the Institute. She wants to see his reaction, but mostly she wants to know what he's up to.  
  
Upstairs. He's above her. She's sure of it now that she's actually inside the building; she can feel it. Feng Min's just starting to pick her way up the sagging, ash-caked staircase when something breaks through the static's signal and reaches her ears. It's the sound of something familiar.  
  
A sort of clicking. Rasping. Someone struggling to breathe. No, not the Doctor.  
  
The Nurse.  
  
For one stunned second, Feng Min stands halfway up the stairs, just listening to both her mind and her ears confirm the same thing: the Doctor's static and the Nurse's unmistakable breathing are both coming from the same place.  
  
Why is she here? Why is _he_ here? Does she really want to go walking right up to two killers, totally defenseless?  
  
She hasn't heard much from the other survivors about the sort of habits that killers tend to take outside of trials. She'd heard from some of them that a few of the Entity's servants could sometimes be witnessed passing through one another's territories, or wandering the fog together, which is a thought that Feng Min hadn't been able to wrap her head around. But that had been back when she'd thought every killer to be a bloodthirsty, mindless monster. They hadn't seemed to be _people_ so much as half-formed night terrors so terrifying she often couldn't bring herself to face even the most human-looking of them.  
  
But they'd all lived lives with texture and color and light, in another world.  
  
Feng Min brings herself closer, staying near the wall, her heart pounding so hard that she's sure that one of them will be able to hear it. She's almost right.  
  
[  You can show yourself. ]  
  
She pauses on that, because her first thought is, _What the fuck,_ and then, _It might be a trap_ , but that's never stopped her before, and his words come across as expectant. The Nurse's difficult breaths continue, but she doesn't hear her come any closer, so Feng Min steps into the doorway, tense, trying to keep her distance. It's the abandoned ward, which has been reduced to debris, more or less. The damage suggests a major fire to her, and one part of the roof still smolders — just more evidence that the Entity has no need for entropy — but it looks like it's been so long that nature has begun to reclaim the structure.  
  
The Doctor is there, half-turned away from her. Beside him, the Nurse floats, her toes just shy of skimming the ground, her head dropped, chin pointed at her chest, like the force of gravity works differently on her exclusively. Feng Min is seized by fear the moment she lays eyes on her — like muscle memory, her chest starts going tight, her throat thick, anxiety turning her thoughts useless — but then she catches the Doctor's gaze, and it only takes a second, but the static moves around her and tells her that she is safe.  
  
[  You arrived sooner than I thought you might.  ] He's got his arms crossed, a hand at his chin. It's a bizarre sight, with the Nurse next to him. She wonders what they've been doing up here. There's not much to look at and nowhere to sit— although, given the pillow case over her face and the ability to hover, Feng Min guesses that the Nurse requires neither of those things to pass the time at the Crotus Prenn Asylum.  
  
"The fog took me straight here," she says warily, careful to use the right words. It had been more like the opposite: the signal had led her out of the fog, like a tether thrown from a boat, pulling her through the wake. He must know; he's talking like he'd been expecting her to come here looking for him.  
  
[  No. I did.  ]  
  
Of course. Why hadn't she guessed that sooner? He'd been thinking ahead, somehow. But why? And why _here?_  
  
"How did you know I'd even come?" she asks him.  
  
[  Call it an educated guess.  ] The Nurse sways gently in the air as she drifts closer to Feng Min, who flinches, causing the pale form to stop short. The Doctor watches this interaction intently, but he remains where he is standing. [  The reason you are here is because something occurred to me,  ] he says. [  It'll be simple to test. Sally has graciously volunteered to assist.  ]  
  
_Sally?_  
  
The Nurse's head turns towards the Doctor, like she's listening to what he's saying. Feng Min barely stops herself from gawking, it's such a strange sight. To not have the Nurse lunging at her with a bone saw in her hand is nearly impossible to believe on its own. She has a name. A _name._ Sally. Come to think of it... hadn't she seen that name in some recollection of his...? It had come into her thoughts, colored by a strange feeling of emptiness, but she can't grasp much more from the memory.  
  
"Um," Feng Min says, before realizing she has no idea what to say, so she shuts her mouth.  
  
The Doctor laughs in that shiver-inducing way of his, and then he motions towards the Nurse — _Sally,_ Feng Min repeats in her head, stupefied — and says, [  Go on. Say hello. ]  
  
The Nurse's twitching, jerking head snaps in Feng Min's direction. She immediately wants to take a step back, anticipating the sound of her shriek and then the unpleasant terror of having her rematerialize next to her, cutting her down and leaving her bleeding on the ground before she knows what's even happened.  
  
But the Nurse just floats there, pointed towards her. Feng Min waits.  
  
Silence.  
  
She turns towards the Doctor, confused. He answers the question in her eyes.  
  
[  You cannot hear her,  ] he says, and it must be more to confirm it with her than anything, because he doesn't seem surprised; he's nodding, like he's figured something out, and his unblinking eyes have gone unfocused, as if he's already thinking about what he's learned and what to do with the information.  
  
The Nurse's head drops, swinging from side to side a little. Her breathing seems to get heavier. Feng Min's watching her — not like it would do any good if she _did_ choose to attack her now — as she says, "Am I supposed to?"  
  
[  _I_ can, but I didn't think you would be able to. I just wanted to confirm it.  ] The Doctor's sort of moving his hands at his sides, flexing and curling the fingers in an idle manner. Feng Min watches the electricity arc from one finger to another and remembers how he'd told her before that certain other killers were able to communicate with him. _So the Nurse is one of them,_ she thinks.  
  
"So you mean that I can only hear _you,_ " she says haltingly, fully realizing what that means as she says it. So she's not some kind of telepath at all. It just reinforces what she's felt from the beginning: that whatever is happening, it must have more to do with him than with her.  
  
The Doctor just gives her a half-nod, a sort of tip of his head towards one shoulder, and then he's turning back to the Nurse. Feng Min watches as he appears to hold an entire conversation with her that she has no way of understanding, because although the both of them are making expressive hand gestures at one another, Feng Min can't hear either of them utter a word— not from him, and definitely not from the Nurse.  
  
She's just beginning to wonder if the Nurse may be mute, too, when a woman's voice — one that's not her own — cuts into the air. But there's something wrong with it. It sounds like a person struggling to breathe. The shape and shadow of the Nurse's mouth moving beneath the pillow case is a grotesque sight that makes her own throat feel like it's closing up, but Feng Min forces herself to face her as she talks.  
  
" _Y, you are..._ " One of the Nurse's pale hands floats up, pointing at Feng Min, and she wonders again if maybe she should run off after all. " _Affffraid...?_ " It sounds like speaking is an extremely laborious effort for her.  
  
Feng Min nods uneasily. She looks at the Nurse, and then up towards the Doctor.  
  
"He's not going to let anything happen to me right now," she says, somehow inherently knowing it to be true.  
  
The Doctor makes a sort of, _hmmm_ sound, one of those noises that comes from beyond his throat, down in his chest, but he doesn't say anything else. At least nothing that Feng Min can hear.  
  
" _You... hhhave... a role._ " The Nurse's head tilts from one side to the other. Something cracks and pops. Feng Min winces at the sound, her neck and spine stinging with phantom pain. " _I, hhhh...helped... others... before._ " Her ghostly pale body levitates up a little higher, then down closer to the ground. She's almost hypnotizing to watch in her disintegrating cotton gown, especially in the vicinity of the pale silver light coming from the Doctor's steady static flow. " _Hurt... others... now._ "  
  
The Doctor raises a hand; he places it against the back of the Nurse's shoulder, very lightly, then drops it. The motion does not go unnoticed by Feng Min. nor by the Nurse, who seems to sort of slump, arms dangling at her sides.  
  
" _Yyyyou... too,_ " she says, her head tipped in the Doctor's direction. " _D, d, don't.... forget._ "  
  
[  So it goes.  ] Something like a sigh, a hard and rasping exhale, hisses past his clenched teeth. He's moving towards Feng Min then, neat steps across the filthy floor. [  Excuse the disturbance. I do appreciate it.  ]  
  
The Nurse makes a motion with her hands at him. If she offers a goodbye, it must be for the Doctor only, because Feng Min doesn't hear it. But she does escape the encounter alive, which counts for a lot. She's sort of in disbelief to be calmly walking away from the Nurse in one piece on her own territory. As she and the Doctor descend the stairs and head on to the grounds, Feng Min continues to look over her shoulder, expecting the Nurse to blink in right behind her out of the ruins of the asylum, blade in hand. But nothing happens.  
  
She keeps following him towards the tree line. He keeps his back to her, and he stops just before the barrier delineating the asylum grounds from the fog.  
  
[  And where exactly do you think you're going?  ]  
  
Feng Min doesn't like the way he won't look at her, so she steps around him — well, it takes two steps — and stands on her tiptoes to speak directly into his face, which still involves craning her neck almost vertically. "With you," she says sourly.  
  
The Doctor reaches out and puts a heavy hand on her head that flattens her soles back against the grass and nearly makes her knees buckle beneath her. She slips out from beneath his touch and reaches out to tug on his coat. It's warm from the energy he's generating.  
  
"I told you I was staying another night," she reminds him, but it doesn't look like he needs her to refresh him on it. He's looking down at her clenching a handful of the white fabric in her fist, and it only takes him raising his hand in warning for her to let go. She doesn't back off, though, retaining her ground there in front of him.  
  
[  No. There's something I need to do.  ] The Doctor's glowing eyes above her are fixed right on her face.  
  
"Do it later," says Feng Min, utterly serious. As futile as it might be to try to read anything in his expression, she's come to realize that there _are_ some indicators, and that there's something unusual about his eyes; they have a depth that goes beyond the back of his head. She thinks she might be able to find him within them.  
  
[  I'm not interested in entertaining your questions.  ] There's a derisive twitch on his face. He's walking into the mist, now, and Feng Min goes after him. Even in the moonless forest, the white of his coat lit by the circuit makes him easy to follow.  
  
"I'm not going to ask you anything," she says quickly, although the moment the words leave her mouth she knows she's not being sincere, because her intuition's telling her that she _needs_ to ask about it. Maybe he might, too.  
  
[  I _especially_ don't like it when you lie to me, Feng Min. You're smarter than that.  ]  
  
"I... I know. I'm sorry." She gnaws at her bottom lip before saying, "At least tell me what the fu— what all of that was, with the... _Nurse._ " _Sally._ Did he really call her that?  
  
The Doctor eases into the change of topic with a certain caution— Feng Min's not sure he'd be so generous with information, usually. [  Sally has been here for a very long time. She lived and would have died long before you or I were born.  ]  
  
_Before you or I were born._ The Doctor's wording makes numbers come back into her head. Years. His intrusive memories are impressions of feelings and sounds and sights, but organizing the information has been difficult. She's gotten a pretty good sense of things, though. If she does the math, she thinks she might be able to figure out how old he may be. Or was.  
  
"Did she work there? At the asylum?" Feng Min tries to catch up to him, reaching out for his arm to try to get him to slow down. Touching him of course leads to a painful zap, which makes her stumble back, yelping, followed predictably by his laughter.  
  
[  Why didn't you ask her yourself?  ] There's a low, ambient glow coming off of the Doctor, primarily from the wires stapled down the back of his head.  
  
"Are you crazy?"  
  
[  I don't know. What do you think?  ] He slows, turning with one pointed glance down past his shoulder, his glowing irises darting over her. The laughter cuts in and out and skips like a scratched CD.  
  
The obvious answer might be _yes_ , she thinks, but she's begun to fear that the answer is _no_ , and that makes all of this feel so much more precarious.  
  
Feng Min feels uncomfortable under his direct and expectant gaze — he wants her to answer; she can feel the static pressing up on her, a sort of indefinable pressure — and she quickens her steps to move slightly ahead of him, staring at the ground. "I'm not the best person to ask," she says, and more insecurity seeps into her voice than she cares for.  
  
[  And you insist on returning with me to the Institute.  ] It's half-question, half-statement.  
  
"If you really had a problem with it," Feng Min points out, her brows lowering, "you'd just get rid of me. It'd be so easy for you. It _is_ that easy for you. Just reach out and snap my neck or electrocute me. But you haven't. Because you... don't feel like it. Or don't want to."  
  
The Doctor's voice in her head seems to float in and out, giving his flat response a strange and distorted quality. [  Why do you think that is?  ]  
  
Good question. Feng Min doesn't have any clue. The only thing she _does_ know is that he's keen on finding the source of her mental link with him. She doesn't think he's in any hurry, though. At least he doesn't seem to be. Anything else, well— she can barely read the Doctor's _expressions,_ let alone understand what's going through his head. Apart from a lot of voltage, that is.  
  
"I don't know. I'm waiting for you to tell me," she says quietly. He just makes a sort of amused sound, a huff that pauses his unsteady breathing, but says nothing else.  
  
The dark mist begins evaporating, and then the air starts cooling. Even the light coming through the canopy shifts, and, like paint mixing together, the moonlit sky takes on a deep, dusky hue. Feng Min feels the first couple of snowflakes on her nose just as Léry's Memorial Institute comes into view. The Doctor pauses before the building, and she comes to a stop several paces behind him. He seems to be looking up, but she doesn't know what he's looking at. Unable to see what he is seeing, her eyes soon lose interest and land on him again instead.  
  
There's a strange sort of self-possession about him, Feng Min thinks as she watches snow collect on his shoulders. She decides that it must be in the way he carries himself. At first, she'd seen only a panting, imposing monster, leering and laughing. Now, she's noticing subtler things: the way the Doctor's fingers twitch and spark when he seems lost in thought, the almost imperceptible way his brow moves now and then when he's surprised or skeptical, or how sometimes his jaw shifts when she hears the laughter, even though she knows it's not really coming from his throat. Or the way that every movement he makes appears to be a deliberately planned choice beneath the veneer of madness. All of these things have become as fascinating to her as they are frightening, and those feelings have been growing in equal measure.  
  
The Doctor doesn't tell her not to follow him, or to go back into the mist, so Feng Min drops back to let him walk in front of her. He allows her to trail him down the hallways, scattering the clouds of dust in the air. He ends up leading her back upstairs, to the same room she'd just left before leaving to find him at Crotus Prenn.  
  
Feng Min eyes the bed, wanting to sit on it and rest her frankly tired legs, but she makes herself lean against the wall instead. She watches him move around the room and pick up the wires that she'd left on the floor after unplugging herself from the monitoring equipment. Reaching behind himself, he turns the power on with a curl of his fingers, bringing the machinery online with a whir before he drops into the chair in front of it.  
  
She just watches him for a few minutes as he calls up some unknown command on the interface. She's really not looking forward to wearing the uncomfortable headgear for another night, or to the fact that she has to fall asleep in his presence a second time, not knowing if the result will be any more successful.  
  
How much longer can she keep coming here under the delusion that any of this is going to help her situation? Even if she finds an answer, would it make any difference to someone as helpless as her compared to the Entity? She's just a human. She's meat for slaughter, like the rest of the survivors. And it can choose to take her off the menu at any time.  
  
She's not playing _Mistgrid_ any more. This isn't a situation where she can just call the shots and come out on top as the hero. A lifetime of escapism had done nothing to prepare her for the nightmare.  
  
"Um..." Feng Min trails off, not knowing how to get his attention. Her mouth and brain are seeking for a name, something to call him. She can't make herself just say _Doctor_. It doesn't feel right, for so many reasons. But he's heard her remark, and he's looking at her over the top of the monitors. She brings her feet together and stares down at her shoes. "Have you even learned anything about my mind at all?"  
  
The Doctor's chair moves back, a little. He's got one hand on his knee, the other paused against the interface. A few seconds pass; she's wondering if maybe he hadn't heard her after all when he says, [  Yes. Much.  ]  
  
He stands up. Suddenly, Feng Min is met by an oppressive wall of static. It's congealing in the air, dense with noise and light and shadow, and she realizes — maybe too late — that there's a hissing at her feet, electricity singing around her ankles, close enough to singe her jeans. Although she doesn't feel it in her body — none of her muscles have locked up — she remains where she is right there against the wall, watching him move towards her. Is he doing it on purpose? She can't tell. The electricity and the noise are so very much a part of him that she doesn't think she'd be able to find the border where he ends and the static begins even if she tried.  
  
[  I've learned that you have the brain of an addict.  ] He stops a few feet before her, hands at his sides. [  Always looking for the next rush. A sad, sick, self-hating girl. You hungered so long for validation, but when you got it, you fell apart.  ]  
  
His words catch her completely undefended, seeming sharper, narrower, perfectly formed to slice down her corpus callosum and send her thoughts into a vortex of confusion and anger. Her vision briefly goes greyscale as the noise builds to a pitch. "You know what's not what I—"  
  
The Doctor holds a hand up to silence her. [  So you would isolate yourself. You sought punishment. The dutiful daughter your parents once knew became a stranger to them. You self-destruct because you cannot face yourself and you're ashamed of your failures. ] His flat palm is alive with an incandescent and strange blue light. It's somehow mollifying, even as shame surges up her throat, hot and poisonous.  
  
"Stop," Feng Min says, but her voice is almost inaudible. He closes in on her, and she vacillates again between fear and a heart-pounding sort of anticipation. Even now, there's a sense of magnetism that rises above the self-loathing.  
  
[  You long for someone to share your pain, but really you just want it all for yourself.  ] He reaches out for her. [  You think you deserve it.  ] She expects him to grab her by the throat or the head. Instead he leans over and takes her hand. It's dwarfed within his; he could probably comfortably close his fist around hers. She winces at first, priming to be shocked, but the current flowing over his fingers only washes up over her hand gently and then flows back to his, like water might.  
  
It's beautiful. Feng Min doesn't get to see much beauty any more, so she knows it now when she sees it, and she appreciates it so much more. The electricity has a life of its own, moving harmlessly over and around her wrist, glittering in the dimly lit room. She watches the little lashes of light between his tendons, where red wires glow through the scarred flesh, and she pretends for a moment that he hasn't just examined her soul the way another doctor would examine her throat.  
  
The current goes out all at once, shattering her trance. She looks up at the Doctor. He's already staring directly down at her. Her hand remains extended in the air, up in to his grasp.  
  
[  That's what I've learned about your mind. Would you say that my evaluation is correct?  ] The only thing glowing on him now are his eyes, which never close, never shut off, never really look away.  
  
Feng Min pulls her hand back to her chest. It's burning, all pins and needles up to the fingertips. He's right about everything. He's been right about her from the beginning, when he'd called her _troubled_. It's a rhetorical question, meant to mock her. He's seen her failures and weaknesses through her own eyes, in her own mind. It would hardly take an expert, she thinks, to figure out that there's a whole fucking lot wrong with her.  
  
But she knows that. Does he think that she _doesn't?_  
  
"Yeah," she says finally, her tired eyes moving back to stare, unfocused, at his hand. Something as funny as it is sad occurs to her. "You probably know me better now than anybody else ever has." Feng Min knows that the Doctor has seen things she'd have otherwise never told a soul. Looked in on her at her absolute worst, living each day on the constant edge of a breakdown. Learned the names of the people she'd turned on and undercut for the sake of her career. Watched as her indulgence in substances had turned to need then turned to abuse. Seen her desperately share her heart and her body with others, with strangers, trying to find someone who would understand, or else someone who would help her forget for a little while. She can feel his imprint on those memories, the sense of a mind that is not her own having ripped open and violated her subconscious.  
  
But there's an inverse to that, too, she realizes. An important one.  
  
"What about you?" Feng Min lifts her arms to cross them, but the Doctor reaches out to stop her, his heavy breathing shifting as he catches a wrist. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking right now, but he hasn't shocked her, so she continues steadily, feeling vulnerable and upset but mostly frustrated with him and with everything else, too. "You didn't have a lot of opportunities growing up, did you? But you knew how smart you were. You were so _different._ "  
  
The memories she'd received without her consent are loose in her mind, incongruous enough that she can pick them out easily from her own, even though they've already faded considerably, the way the mind can never seem to hold onto the details of a dream. She still can't examine them as easily or understandably as the Doctor can hers, but she's learned a few things, and the more she strains to concentrate, the more clearly defined the impressions become.  
  
He's still soundless. Still letting her talk.  
  
"You... you wanted to do good things," Feng Min continues, her bravado wavering for a moment, dreading his silence, unable to know what it means until he chooses to break it. "Didn't you? You wanted to help people." She closes her eyes and tries to search for the details. "You tried, but something... changed." There's a throbbing at the front of her head, right behind her eyes, when she tries to see why. She can't tell.  
  
[  So you think you've learned something about me. ] The Doctor suddenly moves, breaking away from the wall to cross back over to the machinery.  
  
"No," she says, truthfully. "But it's only a matter of time until I figure the rest of it out." The latter part is truthful, too. Regret and shame coat her tongue as she adds, "You know me, right? I don't give up easily."  
  
The laughter suddenly starts, so sudden and jarring that she physically recoils.  
  
[  I should have put an end to this much sooner.  ] The words are calm although ominous, but the static field around him has drawn back. She doesn't sense the white-hot anger so much any more.  
  
"It's too late for that." It's true, although she agrees with him. Feng Min takes one step forward, then two. When she sees that the Doctor isn't raising his hands at her, she closes the space remaining. Her gaze falls on the cables woven into his arms, looking at the way they twist and rise through the muscle. The end of one hangs loose on his upper arm like a broken bone, crackling at the end. Feng Min reaches out with her fingertip. Almost close enough to touch it.  
  
He's watching her silently.  
  
_Be brave,_ she tells herself. _Just this once._  
  
"Tell me why you're here. What are you being punished for?"  
  
The Doctor rolls his head from one side to the other, laughing as as though he finds her question hysterical. [  You think I'm being punished?  ]  
  
Feng Min's hard gaze doesn't flicker. She knows she's onto something. Her intuition, the static all around her, the memories in her brain— it's all telling her so. "Are you telling me you're not?"  
  
The laughter fades out, like the end of a song.  
  
"I feel like you're in my head all the time now," murmurs Feng Min, and the budding headache threatens to start pounding once more. She raises a hand to her temple, pressing her cold fingertips above her brow. Why her? Why _him?_ Why is any of this happening? Is she ever going to get to know? "The... the noise. It won't let me stay away."  
  
The Doctor's aura of static shimmers, radiating unpredictably for a moment before settling. The equipment before him suddenly comes to a grinding stop, all of the monitors going black. He looks at her over his shoulder. [  I'll answer one question.  ]  
  
A spark lights up in Feng Min's chest. But it's not enough. "No," she says. "You'll show me." She drops her hand from her head.  
  
Discontentment rolls in the back of his throat. [  I doubt you have the cognitive or physical capacity to handle direct transference. It will hurt much more than it did last time.  ]  
  
The wall has started to thin between them, the static parting to allow glimpses. She has to see it through.  
  
"I— I don't care," Feng Min says, shaking her head. "I want to try it anyway."  
  
The Doctor's forever-smiling face tilts up towards the lights, as if in thought. [  What exactly do you want me to show you?  ]  
  
"The whispers," she says immediately. "I want to know why you could hear them."

  
  


The Doctor has moved them to another room on the second floor of Léry's Memorial Institute. This one is different than any other Feng Min has seen so far: it has a view.  
  
It's not much, but some of the window panes are broken, allowing a glimpse outside. When she looks, she sees nothing but fog in every direction. Fog and that watchful, always full moon. There's nothing on the horizon beyond that. Just an absolute, endless black. She stares into it for around two minutes, trying to see if any of the stars will flicker, or if the light will change. Nothing does. It gives the impression that the Institute is trapped inside a snow globe.  
  
She only notices after taking a glance outside that the rest of the room is a bit different, too. It's an office, like the one downstairs, but this one is a lot more sparsely furnished. It looks half-finished, or like it's suffered particularly from whatever damage had resulted in the destruction of the place. She runs her hand over the top of a short desk, disturbing a layer of dust an inch thick.  
  
"Why here?" she asks softly.  
  
[  You'll see,  ] the Doctor says, and then he holds his arms out in front of himself, as if grasping for her, so she moves within his reach. His hands take a hold of her head, and she thinks about how the pressure of his fingertips on her scalp is starting to feel familiar.  
  
As his fingers find the correct spots, Feng Min says, suddenly compelled by a sort of regret, feeling a self-conscious and pathetic need to justify herself, "All of those things I did to... to myself... I knew they weren't helping. I didn't care. That's why I did them."  
  
[  I know,  ] he says. [  I saw. You don't need to explain. ]  
  
And, somehow, that's exactly what she'd needed to hear, so she doesn't say anything else and just closes her eyes.  
  
[  Are you ready? ] comes the Doctor's voice through the black.  
  
"I think so," says Feng Min, and then, "...Yes."  
  
There is a vivid explosion of light that burns through her mind and wipes out all trace of _self._ The entire world then disappears around her, and she disappears along with it. 


	9. punishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like this fic has picked up a handful of new readers lately. Hi! Thanks for reading! There's a bit of a tone shift in this chapter. We're sliding into a different part of the story now. Feedback is what helps me improve and keeps me going, so if you have the time, please let me know what you think!
> 
> Also, dropping some praise for [this fan art by Tumblr user iridescent-king](https://iridescent-king.tumblr.com/post/180987122371/a-little-fan-art-for-raycats-amazing-fic-dark), which is just a really sweet interpretation of a chapter 7 scene. Check it out.

Colors shift. Paint spreads back over the walls, brightens, saturates, shines gleaming new. Around her, chairs turn upright and shift across the floor as the office reassembles itself. The hole in the ceiling closes; fluorescent lights appear. The tiles come together beneath her feet, newly waxed and shiny. A view appears out of the window, a _real_ one, a bright blue sky and the first sun Feng Min has seen in ages. But then she realizes that she's not the one seeing it. Realizes that _she's_ not here any more. There are only—

   
  


There are only so many reasons you'd be called into Dr. Stamper's personal office. The formality isn't typically needed; Stamper's usually down in the lab with you, because he likes to observe. You don't mind the audience, because you've known how best to cull his approval from the moment you met the man. ( _I'll never understand why you didn't go into engineering, Carter,_ he'd say, like you're supposed to be good at one thing only, or something.) You have a pretty good feeling that you know why he wants to talk to you now.  
  
You've only been working out of the Institute for a handful of years. You'd been offered a deal you couldn't afford to refuse. You'd deferred it for about a year, explaining that you wanted to finish your education, and then they'd come back. _Your tuition will be paid off,_ the recruiter had promised, and also, _I don't think you understand. You'll be learning hands-on with some of the finest minds our nation has to offer._ You had been dealing with loans and grant money at the time, because after your father died, you had to put your education on hold. You remembered him telling you once that you had to take advantage of every opportunity that came your way, that there were no second chances. You said yes.  
  
(Some years later, you discover that you never really had a choice. They'd picked you, monitoring you for years, keeping tabs on you, waiting until the time was right. It was always going to end up this way.)  
  
It's not the academic career you'd envisioned. When you asked exactly what kind of facility it was and what kind of program they intended to place you in — if there was a curriculum, or credentials — the recruiter said, _The Central Intelligence Agency isn't at all like you'd think. We're better equipped to make scientific advancements than any educational facility in the world. At the Léry's Memorial Institute site, we conduct research focused on developing and applying new information-gathering techniques._  
  
You asked, _What does that have to do with neuroscience?_ and you soon learned the answer.  
  
Stamper still calls you _green_ , even four years in. You've never liked the militaristic aspect of working for the Directorate. All of the senior officials are obsessed with hierarchy and seniority. There's an unpleasant kind of atmosphere at the facility, more intense than the pressure you'd encountered at school. You're constantly watched and regimented. It's exactly the sort of life you never wanted: a life like your father's was. You hated the sound of _Officer Herman Carter._  
  
Once, you imagined a life of curing diseases. Finding ways to heal and repair the brain. You'd come here to study the human mind, wanting to know what made it work, down to the smallest parts of it. Here, you could do that and more, but not the way you initially planned. Stamper told you, on that very first day you met him, _Before you can learn how to repair a mind, you must learn how to break it._  
  
You've arrived at the office before the doctor has, so you take a seat in front of his desk and watch the cardinals go darting past the window. When he shows up, you're not too worried. You don't think there's any way he can refuse your proposal. Not if he paid attention to the charts. You've done everything he's asked of you so far. He's never left you wanting for anything, with the endless resources the Directorate has access to.  
  
He's holding the folder you dropped on his desk yesterday as he asks you, _Is what you wrote here true?_  
  
_It's just a theory,_ you say, but only because you should. You know it's more than that. So much more than that. You'd tested it on yourself.  
  
_Do you think it could be helpful, applied here?_ Stamper asks expectantly; you can see the certainty already spreading across the old bastard's face. It's the look of a man enlightened.  
  
_Yes,_ you say. _Just let me demonstrate it for you._  
  
The whispers in the back of your head go quiet as you say it. Stamper has no idea what it is you've discovered. No one does. Not yet. 

   
  


The whispers make the transition from memory to black dream so naturally that Feng Min doesn't know it, at first. But then her senses numb out all around her— vision, hearing, touch. It's like a plunge into the void; there is nothing there to break the endless fall.  
  
There are no thoughts in her head— no wondering why she had so suddenly slipped into the Bloodweb. There is no thinking within the dead sleep. There is only existing— and the whispers. They're closer, now, coming up behind her ears and skimming down her spine and sliding into her mouth. They're all around her. But they're not like the static. The static has never swallowed her so entirely.  
  
A sense of shape and form causes her to consider her body. The recollection of her fragile human self. If she concentrates, she thinks she can place the outline of her hands in the shadows.  
  
They become apparent to her there in the darkness. The whispers come up against her imagined fingers, and it feels like she's placed her hands in boiling water. Unable to do anything but allow it to happen, Feng Min watches as they begin to fade before her from fingertip to knuckle to palm, dissolving into the shadows, fraying into the whispers.  
  
An intense pain overtakes her, centered in her head, and she knows it's just biding its time, waiting until she—

   
  


"Wake up. Come on—"  
  
Feng Min awakens with a scream, thrashing and rolling over onto her side, her hands flying up to her head. Quentin's hand is on her shoulder, shaking her, and she recoils from his touch. It feels like she's taken a knife to the skull. She sits up abruptly, gasping for breath and struggling to understand that she's finally awake now— back in her own head, back at the campfire. _Oh._  
  
It had apparently killed her, like the Doctor warned it might, but that doesn't matter: it _worked,_ with such realism and lucidity that it's hard to believe she's _herself_ again now. She turns, wild-eyed, to Quentin, who's sitting back on his haunches; next to him, Laurie reaches out, stopping just shy of grasping her by the arm, her eyes wide with worry.  
  
"Calm down! You're here! You're at the campfire," she's saying in a rush.  
  
Feng Min gropes her sweaty face with her hands, then looks at them. They're the same as ever, small and pale and tipped with teal polish. And quivering before her now like the wings of a butterfly.  
  
The last of the whispers fade away with a seductive murmur, leaving only the static behind.  
  
"Are you okay?" Quentin asks. He's exchanging a look with Laurie. Behind them, Bill's leaning over, hands on his knees, to inspect her. Kate stands near him, looking uncertainly between Bill and Quentin, as if wondering what she can do to help.  
  
"Yeah," she says, embarrassment gradually settling over her as she grounds herself by staring into the familiar light of the campfire.  
  
"I still get nightmares, and I've been here for ages," says Laurie kindly, not that it helps Feng Min feel any better.  
  
After a few minutes for the others to reassure themselves that she's alright, Feng Min is left with only Quentin, who hasn't budged from his spot next to her. He's staring a hole through her skull.  
  
"Do you want to tell me what the— what's going on?" Quentin asks. He's frowning, but it's not directly at her— he's sort of looking down, in a guilty way, like he thinks he has something to do with any of this.  
  
Feng Min feels like shit, looking at him making that face for someone like her. Her head's killing her, and she doesn't know what to say or how to begin. There's no real way to talk to Quentin about this; she's not even sure how to talk to _herself_ about it.  
  
Quentin's got his hands in his pockets, his shoulders sagging. "I'm worried about you. And... I'm not the only one."  
  
Feng Min's head drops. She knows that there had been no chance that all of her sneaking around and slipping away solo would go unnoticed forever. Her face crumples, helplessness threatening to crack the mask, but she still manages to say, "I know."  
  
"We could lose you," says Quentin slowly. Now he's looking up towards her face, his plaintive grey eyes searching her expression. "You could lose yourself."  
  
"We're already lost here," she says quietly, because she has no real excuse to give him. She thinks that, while he may not know the nature of her secret, he seems to be catching on to the danger of it.  
  
"Nobody wants you to be one of those survivors that just disappears one day." He's holding to his point. "Believe it or not, we all care about you."  
  
There's a knot in her throat. She wants so badly to confide in him the confusion she's feeling— the noise and the whispers and the way they both beckon to her, dissonant. The undoing of one burden only to find another. The person whose thoughts now live in her head, whose fate seems little different from their own. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; there is only the tunnel and the end.  
  
"Does this have something to do with those tapes? Or the hospital?"  
  
Feng Min shakes her head _no,_ but he seems to know she's lying judging by the way his face clouds, so she says, "You promised you wouldn't tell anyone."  
  
"I haven't. And I won't," says Quentin firmly. "But you need to tell me what's going on." He doesn't have to explain why; it's apparent to the both of them, and Feng Min knows it.  
  
She laces her fingers together, timing her breaths against the throbbing pain in her head. "They're all just... just people, you know? The killers. Or they _were._ "  
  
Quentin looks like he doesn't know if he wants to reply, uneasy at the direction the conversation is going. "Yeah," he says finally, then he sighs. He still's looking at her in a concerned manner. "Once... Laurie and I were out scavenging. It feels like it was a long time ago..." He closes his eyes, remembering. "We ended up at Autohaven. The one with the garage. And we were looking around for the Wraith, you know, trying to see him... and we started hearing the weirdest sound." Quentin makes a vague motion with his hand, looking bewildered and somehow sad. "And he was just standing out there, howling. On top of the hill. I've never heard anything make a sound like that before. It wasn't like a wolf, or like a person. Just on and on. He kept doing it. Like he was just... waiting for someone to answer."  
  
Feng Min listens, staring at the ground. It's a story that would have stretched the limits of her belief a short while ago, but it doesn't now.  
  
"Jake said once he was in the forest, you know, the rainy one..." Quentin continues, looking like he's remembered something else. "He was forced to stake out the cabin for a while because the Huntress was doing that thing where she kind of runs around the border...? And he said, later, he watched her sing herself to sleep. Like a little kid would or something."  
  
She can see it in her head: Jake crouched on the awning of the old dwelling, peering into the spot before the fireplace as the Huntress curled up next to its warmth, humming her elegy.  
  
"Do you think we'll ever be saved?" Feng Min asks him softly.  
  
Quentin's hair falls over his eyes as he considers what she's saying. "I don't know. It would take a miracle from God himself."  
  
"You believe, don't you?" Her eyes stray to the cross hanging from the chain on his neck. She can just barely make out the words _sacred heart_ on the medallion behind it.  
  
"More than ever," Quentin says seriously. Across from them, Ace has begun trying to rouse a game of poker, letting them talk under the cover of his loud voice.  
  
"Not to be disrespectful, but... _why?_ " she asks him.  
  
"If I don't, what's left after that?"  
  
Feng Min's heart drops. She rubs her forehead and comes to a decision. "I... I'm going to show you something. You'll need to come with me. It's going to seem kind of insane and will probably get us killed. Do you want to come?"  
  
"Of course," says Quentin without hesitating, smiling weakly.  
  
"Good. We're going to need Nea."

   
  


Nea tells them that there's no way she's giving anything to either one of them unless they let her come along for whatever they're up to. "I'm fucking _bored,_ " she complains by the campfire.  
  
Quentin gives Feng Min a look, and then she gives Nea a look and shrugs. "Suit yourself," she says. She has a feeling that Nea will like this idea even less than Quentin will. They set out into the fog soon after that with the offering Feng Min has asked Nea to relinquish: the charcoal illustration of Crotus Prenn Asylum.  
  
The dark mist doesn't deliver them to the asylum right away. It brings them through the cornfields first, forcing them to occupy a few hours waiting out the Hillbilly, who is usually seen roaming his realm at unpredictable times. There's a scare when the forest then puts them out at the MacMillan Estate and Quentin nearly steps right into a trap. The sound of him falling back on his ass alerts the Trapper, and they just barely manage to slip back into the fog, the sound of his heavy breathing at their backs.  
  
But, soon, as Feng Min knew it would, the fog allows them to find the Crotus Prenn Asylum.  
  
"Are you going to finally tell us what we're doing here, or what?" Nea says, looking cranky, despite the fact that she'd checked out for a nap a couple of hours ago, even as the Hillbilly had gone stomping by mere feet away as Quentin and Feng Min kept a lookout.  
  
"Shhh," she says to Nea, raising a finger to her lips. Nea raises a finger, too— specifically her middle one. Feng Min just rolls her eyes and looks again towards the asylum. She gives the windows another scan. They haven't heard any of the Nurse's clicking or gasping sounds, yet, so she ventures out. She only goes far enough to place the drawing on the cracked front step, and then she returns to where Quentin and Nea are hiding behind a pile of debris. She picks up a rock.  
  
"Have you lost your fucking mind?" snaps Nea under her breath the moment she realizes what Feng Min's about to do.  
  
"Um, probably," she says, honestly, and then she pitches it. The rock goes sailing through the air and hits the wall by the entrance with a loud crack, then drops to the grass.  
  
Quentin's watching with an expression of slowly dawning understanding. Nea's looking back and forth between them like she thinks they've _both_ lost it.  
  
Feng Min waits. And then, as she hoped she might, the Nurse comes floating out of the entrance. She hovers there for a second, as if puzzled, her limply dangling arms and bare feet swaying with her in the light breeze, before she leans over and picks up the drawing. She looks at it. Feng Min watches her mouth move through the smothering fabric over her head as she heaves out each difficult breath.  
  
_Just do it right now,_ she tells herself, and then she launches herself out from behind their cover.  
  
Or she tries. Both Quentin and Nea have reached out for her. Quentin's got both hands on her ankles, and Nea's got a fistful of her jacket.  
  
"Seriously, you are _such_ a weird bitch—" Nea's saying, but she looks terrified.  
  
"Feng Min?" says Quentin, pained.  
  
" _Trust_ me," says Feng Min, even though she can't even really trust herself with this idea. She breaks free of their grip and steps out into the moonlight, exposed. She takes a deep breath and says, "Nurse Sally?"  
  
Nea makes a sound behind her that's half hysterical laughter — " _Sally?!_ " — and half scream of shock and frustration.  
  
The Nurse turns — rotating slowly in place like a ballerina in a jewelry box — towards Feng Min. She's still holding the illustration in her bruised hands.  
  
If this venture is going to end in their quick deaths, now would be the time. But even though Feng Min anticipates the blink, it doesn't come. The Nurse stays on the steps, looking at her, and, finally, she speaks.  
  
" _What... do y, you... wannnnnt...?_ " she says. It's good that the night is so silent, otherwise Feng Min might not be able to understand her choking, quiet voice.  
  
"I just... I have a few questions. For you. I'm sorry for intruding. I'll leave right now, if you want." All she can think of is how utterly terrifying the situation is. She knows she shouldn't drag it out very long; it seems to take the Nurse a great deal of energy to talk.  
  
Her drooping head rocks from one side to another. Feng Min hears a cluster of pops released. " _Your... ffffffriendsss?_ " The Nurse nods towards the place where Quentin and Nea are crouching.  
  
Feng Min can practically feel their panic, as strong as the heartbeat of a killer during a trial. She tries to maintain her calm. "They're not going to touch anything. They're going to wait there, and then we'll leave. I promise."  
  
The Nurse doesn't acknowledge her answer, continuing to gaze in that direction. Soon, Feng Min understands why an answer isn't needed: she becomes aware of the mirage-like shift in the air behind the Nurse just as the Wraith materializes out of it from a thin net of light, looming behind her on the step. He's silent, too, just standing and staring. That's all the response Feng Min needs.  
  
She follows the Nurse into the asylum. She can imagine Quentin and Nea's respective freakouts happening outside, especially when the Wraith placidly walks in behind her. Between the killers, Feng Min's trying not to think about how easy it would be for the two of them to fuck her up pretty badly right now.  
  
The Nurse floats up the stairs, and Feng Min begins to climb them. She gives an uncertain look over her shoulder down at the Wraith, who pauses on the steps below her and stares at her with shining eyes, as if waiting for her to keep going. Disturbed, she hurries the rest of the way up, and is relieved when the Wraith stops at the top of the staircase and doesn't follow her or the Nurse into the former therapy center.  
  
There is no time right now to consider the bizarre knowledge that the Wraith and the Nurse seem to be spending time with one another, as much as she wants to. She waits for the Nurse to find a place she seems to like, watching her float into a streak of dusky moonlight and settle there, suspended and bright.  
  
Feng Min figures that now is her cue to talk; she wants to cost the Nurse as few words as possible, lest she take it out on her, either now or later. "I need to ask you about... about Herman Carter."  
  
Saying his name out loud for the first time is an uncomfortable, surreal experience. She doesn't recognize her own voice or the way she has to move her tongue to say it. A name. _His_ name.  
  
" _Heeee was... here... jus, just here... beffffore youuu..._ " the Nurse says with a whistling gasp.  
  
Was he...? Had she just missed him? She hadn't felt the presence of his static field anywhere on their journey to the asylum. Feng Min doesn't know if she should feel surprised or not. He'd come here yesterday, too, before she'd found him. She's here to learn why, if the killer before her will allow it.  
  
"Why?" she asks. She's standing several paces away, almost up against the wall, too wary to get close.  
  
The Nurse's unstable neck drops back, her face pointed up towards the open night sky. " _Yyyyouuu._ "  
  
Confusion runs through Feng Min's thoughts and derails them, but the Nurse hasn't finished speaking.  
  
" _It hassss... its rituals..._ " rasps the Nurse. Her hands come up before her chest, wrists flexing. The worn paper ripples in her grasp. " _It w, will not be... pleeeeased..._ "  
  
Feng Min looks up towards the sky, too, now, and she understands now what the Nurse means.  
  
" _You shhhhould... n, not come heeeere... againnnn..._ " the Nurse goes on, and Feng Min would almost think her tone was accusatory or morose if she could really understand it through the panting for oxygen.  
  
"I know," she says quickly. "I'm sorry. I won't." She wonders if now is the time to go.  
  
The Nurse's ankles cross beneath her gown; it's a strange thing to see, with the way her toes just barely skim the floor. " _Heeee's... not thhhhe... s, sort of doctor... you'd thinnnnk..._ "  
  
"I didn't think so," Feng Min says, without humor.  
  
" _More of a... scientissssst..._ " the Nurse lets the drawing flutter like a flag as she moves it back and forth in her hand. " _I usssed... t, to work withhhh... the insssane... Now, we are... all alike... All the sssssame..._ "  
  
Feng Min thinks back to what the Nurse had said yesterday: _you, too; don't forget._ "What did you mean yesterday when you talked about roles?"  
  
" _Gr, great pain... calls ffffor... great punissssshment..._ " hisses the Nurse tiredly. Feng Min thinks that she's nearing the limit on this conversation.  
  
"Okay," she says softly, although she badly wants to ask the Nurse to elaborate. "Can you tell me... I mean, if you know... Did something terrible happen at the Institute...? Or... _here?_ " She turns to look at the burned-out surroundings, amazed that the building is still standing.  
  
" _Yessss,_ " says the Nurse, and Feng Min assumes she's answering both questions, because that's all she says.  
  
Nervously, her whole body tensed to run just in case, she ventures a dangerous question. "Did you... _want_ to do what you did...?"  
  
An agonized sound comes from the Nurse. Feng Min doesn't know if it's associated with her labored breathing or not. " _I hhhhad to... had to... I, I haaaad to..._ "  
  
For the first time, Feng Min notices something she hasn't before: there's a sort of translucence to the Nurse's body, around her legs and arms and shoulders. It's a sight that is more discordant with reality than even the floating. Like she's fading away into the scenery. A few beats pass while she stares.  
  
It comes to her that she's got enough information from the Nurse to chew on, and she'd better take her chance to leave while it's still available. She lowers her head. "Thank you," she says. "That's... all I wanted to know. I'll leave you alone, now."  
  
The Nurse doesn't respond. She simply leaves the room, floating out into the hall. Feng Min follows her cautiously, wanting to take the stairs. She pauses at the open doorway. The Wraith is still out in the hallway, where the Nurse has come up next to him. He's got his head tilted sideways, staring at her with his typical blank expression. Before Feng Min can think of what to do, he breaks his gaze, turning to place a blood-crusted hand on the Nurse's shoulder, as if leading her away.  
  
_I don't understand,_ is all Feng Min can think, watching them go down the hallway together. And then logic kicks in again, because it doesn't really matter why the two killers are together, only that they've left her unscathed, and so she runs down the stairs for her life, sprinting across the lawn back towards the spot she hopes Quentin and Nea still are.  
  
They _have_ stayed, and they look stunned out of their minds to see that Feng Min isn't injured in any way.  
  
"What the fuck!" Nea shouts at a volume most survivors would call unwise.  
  
"What she said," says Quentin, who's apparently broken a sympathy sweat. He reaches out to pat Feng Min on the arm as if confirming that she's still in one piece.  
  
" _Thank_ you," is the first thing Feng Min says, reaching out to grab Nea's hands. Nea colors and gives them a yank to pull them away, her lips pressed together in a sour-lemon way, but Feng Min is too exhilarated by the plan working to be discouraged. "I think she _liked_ it. Your drawing. Well, I mean, she didn't rip it up or anything. It worked."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, okay, you're welcome, but _what_ were you doing in there?!" Nea demands to know, her dark hair swinging into her eyes. She's climbing to her feet, shrugging on her backpack and quickly heading for the trees, like she can't wait to get off of the asylum grounds. Feng Min and Quentin follow just as gladly.  
  
"I... I had a theory. I don't think some of them want to _hurt_ us, outside of the trials..." says Feng Min. It's not the truth, but it's not a lie, either. Nea seems to think it over, but it's apparent that Quentin knows that's not the whole story, so she continues, "You can't tell anyone about this. Not until I... figure things out."  
  
The trees soon thicken, and the sense of having crossed the border solidifies as the depth of the darkness changes. "You owe me," says Nea tersely. "You're fucking nuts. You really are. But next five trials with me, you're giving me anything you loot."  
  
"Deal," says Feng Min instantly. That seems like a small price to pay for Nea's silence, at least until she or Quentin figure out that she has no idea what she's doing.  
  
"I won't tell anyone," says Quentin resolutely, shaking his head. "You know that."  
  
"Stop making me look bad, asshole," says Nea, and soon enough they're all talking like normal again, as if Feng Min hadn't just shown them a fundamentally reality-changing side to the killers. It seems to really hit Nea only later; Feng Min catches her slinking off on her own to meditate on it. Quentin, for his part, continues to give Feng Min worried looks by the campfire, but his silence remains golden. For now.

   
  


[  I wasn't sure if I should have expected your return.  ]  
  
The voice in her head comes limbless, floating from no notable point as she enters the Institute through the back of the building. Feng Min takes a look around, wondering if the Doctor is standing nearby, but the only things moving are the security cameras in the reception area as they focus their opposing perspectives on her. She unconsciously reaches up and runs a hand through her hair, then tucks her hands into her sleeves, folding her arms across her chest as she walks through one of the puddles created by the melting snowflakes coming in through the broken skylight.  
  
The static had taken her here. The Entity had put her through a rough gamut of trials recently, a fast-paced blur of pain and fear and exhaustion. One trial after another. Feng Min had lost count; the Entity would sometimes do things like this, working the survivors non-stop, making it feel like days until it'd let them go to sleep for a little while before pulling them back in again. It is never satisfied, only placated by the pieces it tears off their fragile, worn-down souls every time it comes to take them from the hook.  
  
But the static had come to her so strong and so clear that when she found herself free of Haddonfield for the second time in a row, she knew that the dark mist would take her directly there. And it had.  
  
Not knowing where to project her voice, she just talks as she walks, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. "It killed me, didn't it?"  
  
[  I warned you.  ]  
  
"Yeah. What did you do with my body?"  
  
[  I drew your blood,  ] he says plainly. [  It came to take you.  ]  
  
Not wanting to know the details of that — just glad that she'd already been dead when he'd done it — Feng Min moves on immediately to a more important point as she takes a shortcut through a bathroom to what she thinks is the approximate direction of the office. "I still saw everything. Why... why didn't you think I'd return?"  
  
[  I suppose I was mistaken to assume that what I showed you would deter you.  ] The voice in her head seems to have its own echo on the tiled walls. [  But perhaps it's better that you've come, so that I can inform you that I no longer need you— I've drawn my conclusions about your particular... _condition._ ]  
  
Feng Min pauses by one of the grime-coated sinks, startled; that isn't what she'd been expecting to hear, although she's not sure what she _had_ been expecting. "What?" She looks up towards a security camera positioned right above a shower stall. It stares right back at her, red light shining. Her _condition?_ Does he mean the way that she can hear him? Has he solved it? Why, suddenly, has he decided that he no longer needs her?  
  
[  You're almost at my office. I'll explain there.  ] His tone is paradoxically both courteous and disparaging.  
  
There's a throbbing beneath her skull again. A black sense of malaise begins its slow crawl through her.  
  
The office appears dark, at first, from outside the doorway — the yellowy light of the chandelier isn't present — but when her eyes adjust, she sees that there is a pale blue glow coming from behind the desk. It's never truly dark, she realizes, around the Doctor. He'd been remade in light.  
  
When she gets her eyes on him, she sees that he's generating enough brightness from his body to be able to read the notebook on his desk as he leans forward in the chair over it. He closes it when she comes up to his side, and she has to take a moment to reconsider his size, again; it always takes her by surprise, somehow, when she looks at him, even as she's gotten used to being in his presence. He's still taller than her, even though he's sitting down.  
  
Seeing him brings about feelings that Feng Min has no idea how to categorize, but is at least learning how to name. Confusion, fear, anticipation. Relief. The last one is what scares her. The way curiosity keeps winning out over wisdom. Instinct over sense. There is no direction she can predict when it comes to her own emotions: all she knows is that she desperately wants to know more about Herman Carter, if only to learn why he had become a predator and she prey. Why it had worked out this way, and not vice-versa. It feels like if she can learn the answer, she might be able to understand what has happened to her.  
  
But if he no longer needs her, she might never come to know. And that's the way it _should_ be, the way she knows is safest and sanest. They need to stay far, far away from one another. She knows that she should just hear him out and leave and pretend that none of this ever happened, but...  
  
Feng Min waits for him to talk instead of asking questions, and he soon does. [  I noticed something interesting during the transference process.  ]  
  
The Doctor is cast in blues and shadows, his eyes pinpoints of focused light in a face she cannot fully make out. She leans into his desk, looking at him sidelong, her heart thumping a bruise into her ribs.  
  
"What was it?" she asks, just a whisper, although she knows that he's going to tell her, anyway.  
  
_I no longer need you._  
  
[  Your brain shows signs of trauma.  ]  
  
"What?" Feng Min asks blankly.  
  
The Doctor's static field widens, and the silvery light catches the spines of the hundreds of books lining the walls, flattening the shapes into two dimensions. [  I hadn't realized it before. I was focused mostly on your memories, trying to see if anything unusual stood out. I was looking in the wrong place.  ]  
  
"I mean— what do you mean by _trauma?_ " Feng Min asks, feeling unsettled. She knows her life had gone off the rails, a little — well, a lot — but _trauma?_ To give it a name as serious as that would be having to admit that she'd had a complete breakdown.  
  
[  No,  ] he says, as if reading her thoughts; for a moment she has to check to make sure that he isn't touching her head. [  You have a brain injury. ]  
  
She goes still, just looking at him there in the armchair. "A brain injury?"  
  
The Doctor's got one elbow propped on the desk, and he's resting his cheek against his closed fist as he stares at her. [  Have you ever experienced a concussion? Any sort of incident where you might have hit your head?  ]  
  
"Outside of _this_ place? No," she says.  
  
[  If you say so. Your brain shows otherwise.  ] He gives a disinterested hum, tapping the tips of his fingers on the surface of the desk as if waiting for her to leave.  
  
"So..." Feng Min starts, suddenly feeling very small and overwhelmed and lost, "what does that mean?"  
  
[  Given that your brain is ordinary in every other way, the origin of the anomaly appears to be the injury.  ] He waves a hand, a short jabbing motion in the air. [  I believe that the damage you sustained has allowed you to hear me, but not others with similar psychic ability, like the one you call the Nurse. It's unusual, but not impossible. Any human being's brain can be altered in such a way if you have the knowledge and the resources. It was a primary component of my research. You seem to have attained the ability to receive my voice through this unknown trauma.  ] He's looking her right in the eyes, and she stares back. Neither of them can blink right now. [  Beyond that, it means nothing.  ]  
  
Feng Min drops her hands to her sides, feeling sick. " _What_ means nothing?"  
  
[  It's a coincidence. Circumstance.  ] The Doctor's wide eyes twitch, just a little; she can hear him breathing out through his ever-clenched teeth. [  And it no longer interests me.  ]  
  
It knocks the wind out of her, and she doesn't even know why. There's this feeling of abject rejection, being so suddenly pushed away by someone who had let her close enough to allow her to recall his own memories but then refused to explain why. "I just learned your name," she says, brokenly. _And I haven't even gotten to use it._  
  
[  Yes, and I've also showed you more than enough to demonstrate that you will gain nothing by continuing to consort with me,  ] the Doctor says, his tone indicating both warning and threat.  
  
"So you want me to stay away," she says, her voice pitching, growing thin and inaudible.  
  
[  You've disrupted my existence for long enough already, haven't you?  ] he says, almost charitably, but his voice in her head is still low and dark.  
  
Feng Min shakes her head, struggling to pull the lid back onto the well of emotion inside of her. It's a frightening, out-of-control feeling that recalls the worst of her experiences last year— the public humiliation, the betrayal by her teammates, her hysterical and irrational choice to punish herself through drink and vice. She should be _glad_ that the Doctor wants her to stay away. That's what she'd wanted, from the beginning— to get an answer and then to part ways with the information to do with as she saw fit, and then focus fully on just surviving the trials. But now...  
  
Had her objective shifted? The point changed? When had it happened? At what point had she lost sight of her strategy?  
  
She doesn't remember when the static had truly begun its transmutation within her. She'd tried to disentangle it, get it out of her head, but recently she'd come to realize that it had attached itself to her, absorbed all the way through her like a neurotoxin, soaked into each nerve in her body, affecting her in nearly every way. It's there, nested in her head, always telling her that _he's_ still there, too, on the other side of it. She'd wake up from a particularly disorienting trip into the Bloodweb, relieved to be free of the dark whispers, and find her fall broken by the dense noise.  
  
Feng Min realizes that she's come to find it comforting, the way it makes itself known all around her even as it is present inside of her. The static feels stable. Feels like it's always been in her head, in a way. Like it had come back home to her.  
  
And the source of that dark noise is right here in front of her.  
  
"I _can't,_ " she says finally, her voice trembling. "I told you. It won't let me stay away."  
  
The Doctor — a man she now knows was, _is_ named Herman Carter — considers her in silence.  
  
Feng Min's hands float up to her chest. Her fingers feel weak, incapable of grasping, like the rest of her does. But she folds her hands over her sternum, trying to steady her voice. "Don't you feel it?" she asks, desperate to know. Does he? Has he felt its pull?  
  
He gets up from the chair, and the faceted glass of the chandelier spreads the electric glow coming off of him into dozens of little fractures of light on the ceiling. Instead of answering her question, he says, [  Does it matter?  ] He seems... not _angry_ , no, but she can sense that something is off. _Wrong._ The energy coming off of him is dangerous, right now.  
  
"You have to," says Feng Min, her heart in her mouth, claiming her voice before her brain can. "I know you do. You... you wouldn't have shown me those things, otherwise. You wouldn't have spared me when... that _thing_ happened, when you choked me."  
  
Herman Carter is staring down at her. She notices for the first time that the coat he's wearing today is dark, making him fade into the walls, impossible to define against the shadows.  
  
[  It's best left forgotten. Think of it as a favor from me to you.  ] The sparks falling off of his shoulders begin to blink out, throwing the entire office into darkness, before lighting up again.  
  
"No," she says.  
  
He observes her in silence.  
  
"You don't want to admit it," Feng Min says, realizing it as she says it. Now it feels like her distress is unleashing things she knows it's probably wiser not to say, but she can feel it rising in her to overwhelming levels. "Is that it?"  
  
[  What difference would it make?  ] he rebuts instead of responding.  
  
"I don't know," she says, her jaw going tight, "but don't you want to find out?"  
  
There's an indelible tension that draws all the noise together, distilling it into a painful truth; he must sense it, too.  
  
[  I don't think you want to know what the Entity does with those who have outlived their usefulness or exhausted its patience,  ] the Doctor says, canting his head at her. [  Or what I do with the same.  ]  
  
"Then..." says Feng Min, trying to keep her expression neutral, "go ahead and hurt me."  
  
Silence holds for a beat, and then she extends her anxious hands, reaching for one of his. He lets her take it, lifting his heavy arm for her, and the touch doesn't shock her, although she can see the live charge gliding down his forearm.  
  
She turns his hand over, gently uncurls the coarse fingers, runs the pad of her thumb over his crackled and sparking palm. He watches as she brings his hand up to her own throat, closes her grip around his wrist and pushes it there, insistently. Gambling on the chance that he won't squeeze.  
  
"Do your best. Try to scare me off," she says numbly. "But I'll be back."  
  
The Doctor neither flexes nor closes his hand around her neck. [  What exactly do you want from me?  ]  
  
There's this need inside of her that's screaming, _destroy me_. Permanently, once and for all. Feng Min half (maybe more than half) wishes it were possible. That he could shock her brain beyond all awareness and check her out of this hell for good. She wants out of the nightmare, the fog, the Entity, the trials, the deaths and deaths and _deaths_ , her own and theirs and everyone's, forever. But he can't do that. She doesn't think there's anything he _could_ do to make her back down. The static is the only thing that feels level in the nightmare. The only thing that doesn't change. Her discovery of it had been more of an awareness than an attainment, her mind just acknowledging what was already there.  
  
"It's not that I'm not... _afraid_ of you," she says. "But you're not... You can't be that different from... _me,_ or the others, or... anyone. I know I _have_ to be here. I just don't know why, yet. I think you know it, too."  
  
He pulls free of her grip. She's not surprised he won't sustain the touch. When she told him that she'd keep coming back, she meant it. It doesn't feel like she has any other choice but to follow her instincts.  
  
[  Make no mistake, Feng Min.  ] The Doctor looks up towards the television mounted on the wall in the opposite corner of the office. It turns on from his glance alone, flaring with noise and lighting up the entire office. She sees that there's a faint red luminescence glowing through his dark skin, down from his jaw and neck before disappearing past his collar. A cable? His jugular vein? Both? [  I was aware of its voice. Its whispers. I heard it every day. I sought to learn its language.  ]  
  
The television's shiny convex screen changes now with a motion of the Doctor's fingers. A badly distorted recording begins to play. There's a series of numbers in the lower right corner of the screen that Feng Min can just barely make out: _21.12.79 03:39_.  
  
[  I _listened_ to it. I knew what it was doing to me. I had many chances to stop it, but I chose not to.  ] He's looking at the screen, not at her, as he talks in her head.  
  
It's black and white, the footage so blurry and damaged that the human figures on screen just look like indistinct, ghostlike shapes. The camera's mostly trained on a person who might be restrained in some manner, judging by the angle of their body. And the fact that they keep screaming, over and over.  
  
The Doctor's voice is in the background. His real voice, _Herman Carter's_ voice, the one he'd had when he was a real person in the real world, the one that had felt like it had come out of her own mouth through his memories. It's slower, the pitch dropped, has some actual human quality in it— but she'd recognize that laugh anywhere. The _laughing._ The screaming isn't loud enough to block it out.  
  
Feng Min closes her eyes and puts her hands over her ears, not wanting to see or hear the awful thing happening on screen, but, like his voice, the images and the sounds are in her head. "You don't have to show me this. Just _tell_ me."  
  
[  Do you want to know what I felt when I was doing these things?  ] The image on the television changes again— this time to a tape labelled _02.08.81 21:42_ , with barely differing content— just a new voice doing the screaming.  
  
"No," she says. "Turn it off."  
  
[  Nothing. I felt nothing.  ] The image flickers, swapping rapidly from _31.01.78 20:40_ to _25.06.79 01:36_ to _15.11.82 15:19_ and more. [  They had already committed their crimes and rescinded their rights to live among the rest of humanity. The body count was an unfortunate but necessary side effect. And in my line of work... bodies were in limitless supply.  ]  
  
"Stop," she says, strained, turning her face away. Had he known what would happen to him? Where all of it would lead him? She ponders: is the sentence justified?  
  
The television turns off, and the office is dark again. Feng Min's eyes have to adjust to his glowing silhouette.  
  
[  I thought you wanted to _learn_ about me.  ] His tone is patronizing in a way that she really doesn't like.  
  
"I do," she says miserably. "But I want the truth. No one... nobody feels _nothing._ "  
  
The Doctor makes a sound like a sigh— not in her head, but from his body. It sounds strange, a melancholy sound made through a mouth that refuses to move. He drops into the chair, bringing a hand to his temple like he's got a headache. It's a strange motion on him, despite the fact that Feng Min's never seen him without something painful-looking in his skull. He doesn't say anything to her. She gets the impression that he'd like her to leave, which only keeps her standing there, and as the silence goes on, she moves a little closer, until the tips of her boots are encroaching on his shoe and she's standing between his knees.  
  
He turns his head to regard her, and then he lifts a hand to take her by the waist. Feng Min flinches, seeing the current building over his knuckles, but the shock is almost immediately dampened by her leather jacket. He closes his arm around her and pulls her down onto his lap, and, anxious but curious, she lets him.  
  
He's solid, and she's small enough that she can drape her legs across his thighs. The Doctor is just staring at her with that alarming face of his, and she doesn't know what else to do, so she reaches up, cautiously, towards his face, her fingers shaky. Like he's an animal that might bite.  
  
There's an undeniable, existential sort of terror in her right now that stops her heart, telling her that she's right to be afraid of this man who acted like such a monster that he eventually turned into one for real. But then there's the static— the noise, telling her that there is no black, no white, and no such thing as monsters. Only grey. And human beings.  
  
Feng Min's fingertips alight upon the wires running up his head, pausing at the ridges where they've been stapled right into his skull. She stops before reaching the gruesome-looking ports at the crown of his head that flare with electricity, not knowing how deep down they go or if they're dangerous to touch. "Did you do this to yourself?" she murmurs. The whole rig makes her feel afraid, but she's mesmerized by it, too, the way the wires seem to be so wholly integrated inside of him. She wonders how it works, how it all comes together inside of his body, wonders if it could be manipulated or changed.  
  
[  No.  ] The Doctor tilts his face into her hand. She cups his cheek. His skin is warm, she thinks. Of course it is.  
  
"Does it hurt?"  
  
[  Often,  ] he says.  
  
The gnarled texture of the left side of his face makes her think of a burn scar. She brushes her fingers, very carefully, over his high cheekbones, across the bridge of his nose, lower down under his jaw, and he lets her. As though brushing sand away from artifact, she thinks she can see his face in her mind's eye, beneath the tortured mask. His real face. Just for a moment, it's there, like one of his hallucinations.  
  
Feng Min has to take her hands away after that, suddenly conscious of her weight in the Doctor's lap, of the heat radiating off of him, of the empty feeling of loneliness in the face of such unnatural intimacy. There's a compulsion — so strong she sways with want — to press her ear to his chest and listen to learn if his heart beats at all or if it sings with the current, too.  
  
"You... you look tired," Feng Min says, trying to distract herself, and even though the Doctor's face is paralyzed in such a lively expression, it's true. He looks exhausted, like he'd appreciate the chance to just close his eyes. So much of his skin is the varying shades of a bruise, a body warped beyond human limits. He hadn't been nearly this big as a human. She knows that. The point of view had been a tall person's, yes, but nothing close to the vantage point he holds now. It makes it even stranger now to think about how the Entity had preserved her and the other survivors in their fragile human shells, pound for pound of flesh and blood, even as it had twisted and mangled its killers.  
  
[ My mind is always active on some level.  ]   
  
"Is it because of all of this?" she says, looking at the wires running down his arm as she lifts his hand. This time, it's not to bring it to her throat— she merely presses his fingertips to the crown of her head. "What else can you do...?"   
  
[  I can incapacitate you completely, if I want to,  ] he says, and she feels something shiver into her brain, so subtle she wouldn't have noticed it, if she hadn't become so used to the noise, lately.  
  
She suddenly slumps against him, slack and lifeless. She can't move a muscle— not her head, not her arm, nothing. His arm locks around her waist and props her up like she's a doll, her head dropping towards her shoulder. It's not like when he'd paralyzed her before in that stiff, painful, muscle-seizing way; this time she feels nothing, like she's been completely disconnected from her body. The Doctor cups the back of her skull with his other hand, and he seems to be inspecting her, looking into her eyes with an aloof sort of interest, like he's estimating her health.  
  
Feng Min tries to open her mouth and say something, but she can't. There's no sensation of being attached to her body; her nerves have gone dead all over, the signals disrupted en route to her brain. The Doctor lets her linger just long enough to start to scare her, before he suddenly lets her go.  She sits up rigidly, her hands flying to her chest; there's a weird smothered feeling, even though nothing had been preventing her from breathing. "I didn't ask you to show me!" she says, her expression scrunching up.  
  
[  Yes, you did,  ] he says, his hand brushing over her side.  
  
"Yes, I did," she says, nodding; suddenly she doesn't remember just what they were talking about. In fact, she— "Wait. Stop doing that!" Feng Min shakes her head rapidly, like that's going to loosen his grip on her will. It scares her just how abruptly and naturally the agreement had come into her head. It had felt like such a genuine thought, for a moment. He'd done it once before, she remembers. It had been nearly unnoticeable then, too.  
  
The Doctor laughs. It's not so scary this time, even though what he's talking about isn't any less sinister than she'd expect. [  You wouldn't even notice it. How do you know that I'm not manipulating your behavior even now? I could easily make you surrender all control to me completely.  ] He leans back against the armrests. [  You feel lost. You want me to tell you what to do, don't you? That's what you're really after.  ]  
  
Does she? Feng Min isn't sure what the truth is now. She thinks, _no_ , but then she thinks, _yes_ , but which feeling can she trust right now? Her uncertainty shows on her face, because he's laughing again, which is what makes the whole situation suddenly seem very sobering and very wrong. It's _too much_ , too fast, and she climbs off of him and the chair altogether, staggering back into the desk. Her hip collides with the corner, and she reaches to her side to rub the sore spot, looking at him warily.  
  
The Doctor stays where he's seated, shoulders shifting with amusement. He's reaching out for the notebook, like he's content to get back to whatever he'd been working on. Feng Min doesn't know what to do, now; there's an oil spill of contradicting thoughts and feelings in her head, mostly confusion, and she needs time to understand it all.  
  
[  Don't come back here until I next come to find you,  ] he says.  
  
"Okay," she says, before it strikes her: he's never come to seek her out before. So that means... for whatever reason, he's not done with her yet. As much as she isn't sure what to believe lately, about herself or anything else, there's that much. She's not going to ask why he's telling her this, but she's willing to wait to find out. "I'll wait, um... Dr. Carter." She adds the name and title only after thinking about it for a second. It sounds awkward, and he seems to think so, too.  
  
[  If you wanted to know my name so badly, you should use it,  ] he says flatly.  
  
Feng Min lifts a hand to rub at her warm cheek. "...Herman," she says. It's less awkward this time. Seems more _real._ She makes herself practice it on her way back through the fog so that she won't hesitate to use it again. 


	10. overwhelming presence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays! Just wanted to draw your attention to [this animatic by stablepaddock](https://stablepaddock.tumblr.com/post/181089133934/raycats-read-chapter-9-the-link-is-in-the-damn), which is NSFW but just, like, really, really good. She makes a great argument. Thanks for your TED Talk.
> 
> Also! Paddock and [monstersmistress](https://monstersmistress.tumblr.com/) both agreed to let me use the realms of their killer OCs in this chapter (the prison and the desert, respectively.) Thank you guys so much <3
> 
> This chapter's pretty lighthearted, because it's almost Christmas, and I'm not a monster. Enjoy. Please let me know what you think!

Meg and Dwight are sure to give the rest of the survivors plenty of warning before the 'holiday party.' _We're doing Secret Santa. Don't get yourself killed over it or anything, but see if you can scav some kind of gift for your match._ It leaves them all with a decent chunk of time to try to scrounge something together. Nobody really expects anything good— that's not the _point,_ Dwight explained. He and Meg both seem to badly want to do something to inject some cheer into their collective spirits. The nights have seemed colder, lately, and they're all feeling it.  
  
Feng Min gets what they're trying to do, or at least the spirit of it, even if she's never been one to celebrate Christmas, so she accepts participation with no protest. She's given Jake as her recipient. She decides that the most appropriate thing for him would be something practical, and comes up with a pair of leather knee pads pinched from the MacMillan Estate grounds. They're old, but they're not too worn, and she'd like to see Jake start doing more to protect his knees during trials. She's always seeing him crouched on the cold ground dismantling hooks, so she thinks he'll appreciate it. She's wrapped them up in old newspaper and set the bundle under the tree with the rest of the gifts.  
  
Everyone's come together and pulled through pretty decently. Feng Min is impressed by the effort and resourcefulness they've put into the decor. She'd helped hook up a scavenged battery to some string lights that someone had brought back from the swamp, and the survivors had picked out a tree close to the campfire to decorate. Claudette and Laurie had assembled garlands from old curtains and sheets taken from Haddonfield and Springwood, and Nea had fashioned some charming little paper animals and stars out of pages torn from a picture book she'd found in the forest, which she then hung like ornaments.  
  
There's even music, thanks to Kate and her guitar, and when she takes a break from it, Quentin hops on. He's not as good as her, but he isn't bad, and the constant strumming seems to warm the air up. Everyone's gathered around the campfire with renewed energy. There's a few of them missing, either at a trial or out lost in the fog, but Meg keeps saying that the party will keep going until everyone has a chance to drop in.  
  
Ace has produced liquor from some previously unknown stash of his, which puts Feng Min at an impasse again. She ends up lingering back from the festivities, which isn't out of character for her, anyway, but she watches the others trade toasts and wishes it were that easy for her, too.  
  
When it comes time to exchange gifts, Feng Min is approached by Meg, who had apparently been made her match. Meg looks excited. Whatever she's holding is about the shape and size of a baseball, covered in a dull red cloth. "Be careful, it's heavy," she warns.  
  
Feng Min takes it — it _is_ heavy - and tries not to look like she's confused. Meg watches eagerly as she pulls away the cloth, leaving her holding a strange object. It's spherical, but it's not smooth. The round structure is comprised of gears, about six of them, each interlocking with one another. When she pushes on one with the tip of her finger, it spins, causing each of the others to rotate, too. Other than that, it does nothing.  
  
Whatever it is, she decides that it's not really a bad gift. It's interesting and pleasing to the eye, like a three dimensional puzzle. "Where'd you find this? What is it?"  
  
"Claudette and I dug it up around the swamp while looking for bog laurel. I don't know what it is. I thought you would think it was cool," says Meg with a warm smile. She's right. "What do you think?"  
  
"It _is_ cool," says Feng Min. She shifts it from hand to hand. It's got the weight of a large melon. "Thanks." She's glad it's just small enough to be kept in her backpack, which she usually leaves lying around the campfire. She takes a few minutes to tinker around with it, manipulating the cogs forward and backward. There's a fluid quality to the movement; she can't hear a sound coming from the gears' teeth coming together, not even when she holds it up to her ear. When she gives it a hard enough spin, it continues rotating for an extended period of time, just spinning endlessly in the palm of her hand. She has to reach out to bring the gears to a stop.  
  
She puts the sphere away so that she can give Jake his gift. He brightens when he realizes that she's his match, holding his arms out as if welcoming a hug. It's unusual for Jake, and, flustered, Feng Min reaches over with one arm to sort of pat him on the back of the shoulder.  
  
"Oh," says Jake when he tears away the newspaper. "Wow. I was just thinking the other day that if my mom could see me on my knees in the dirt all the time, she'd get so mad at me. She used to hate it if I came back inside with even a little bit of mud on my clothes." Feng Min watches as, in the middle of this anecdote, his gaze moves somewhere distant and sad, before coming back to her. "Thank you. Seriously."  
  
"It's nothing." She thinks of her own parents, now, too. It's hard not to in this atmosphere of celebration. She can't remember the last time she'd really enjoyed the holidays with them. 2011, maybe? 2010? She wishes she could recall, and wonders what they're doing now. If they're waiting for her, looking for her. If they noticed. If they still care.  
  
The unsettled and strange feelings that Feng Min has struggled with since the last time she'd seen Dr. Herman Carter have only intensified. Her experiences in the Bloodweb have been unpleasant almost every time now, a wakeless torment of whispers, leaving her without any kind of rest. She's come to find that, during trials, her aura reading abilities sometimes don't seem to work the way that they should— the images flickering, the whispers lifting higher than the heartbeats, confusing her. The repetitiveness of trial after trial has never felt more exhausting, especially after being told by the Doctor that she needs to wait for him to come find her. For what or why, she still doesn't know.  
  
The static seems to be the only balm to the whispers. It's always there, even during the worst pain, giving her something to focus on when she's been injured in a trial and just trying to get through it. Every time she wakes up, it's the first thing she looks for.  
  
There's a commotion nearby, and Feng Min learns that Kate's gift to David is apparently a tattoo. She's got a bottle of ink and a sewing needle and is explaining, "I know what I'm doin', okay? Did this myself." She reaches up to tug down the strap of her tank top, exposing the outline of a moon above her breast, which makes Dwight turn away in embarrassment.  
  
"I'm mad for it!" says David, slapping his knees with enthusiasm. He looks like he's pretty drunk already. So does Kate, too, come to think of it.  
  
"A _tattoo,_ though? A prison tattoo? How do you know it'll even last?" insists Dwight, greatly concerned. "And this isn't really a sterile environme—"  
  
"We'll see, yeah?" says David, smacking Dwight on the back so hard that he knocks the wind out of him, making him wheeze and keel over. David then begins unbuckling his pants, which is the moment that Feng Min chooses to turn away. "Right, then, Kate, we put it 'ere, on my arse—"  
  
Turning her attention to the others, Feng Min observes as Nea hands her gift over to Quentin. It's a sketch of him and Laurie, apparently drawn covertly from across the fire. Quentin looks bashful, but he takes it and shows it to Laurie right away, who seems like she'd happily keep it for herself.  
  
"I think they know," says Quentin, and he's trying to keep his voice down, but Feng Min can hear him pretty clearly.  
  
"You think so?" says Laurie, a little sarcastically, but she looks so content, in a way Feng Min hasn't seen before. The moment Quentin is distracted, Laurie makes a _shhh_ motion at Feng Min, and then she slips up behind him to dangle a sprig of amaranth up above his head, holding it there until he eventually turns around and notices it.  
  
When he does, a big smile slowly warms his sleepy face, teeth and everything, and — with a somewhat embarrassed but defiant look at the others — Quentin takes her around the waist, tips her in his arms, and kisses her right on the mouth. Laurie locks her arms around his neck and over his shoulders, smiling against his lips.  
  
" _Now_ they know," she says.  
  
Ace stands up, nearly falls over, and then starts clapping. "Congratulations!" he says, although nobody seems to be sure what he's praising them for. There's a big wet stain down the front of his sweater where he's spilled half a drink on himself. Bill's nearby, thrusting a ragged old towel at him.  
  
Seeing everyone together like this — smiling, laughing, some _light_ in their eyes — hurts, in its own strange, small way. Just knowing that this happiness isn't going to last is enough to taint it completely. The specter of their dark, unknown future hovers impending. When Feng Min looks hard enough, the happiness starts to seem less genuine and more desperate. Everyone wants to forget. Everyone. She knows she can't be the only one that wants to run away from themselves.  
  
That thought drains every last bit of her remaining energy, so Feng Min takes a seat by her backpack and takes the gear sphere out. She sets it on her lap and lets her mind wander as she toys with it, wishing she had a drink.  
  
Eventually, Nea drops down next to her, all limbs and shredded denim. "Needa talk to you," she says thickly. Her nose is reddish; Feng Min can smell liquor on her breath. She doesn't like where this is going. She's been waiting for Nea to lose her limited patience and bring up the topic of what she'd shown her and Quentin sooner or later. Nea's been giving her far too many strange looks lately for Feng Min to be able to convince herself that she'd magically forgotten the whole thing somehow.  
  
"What is it?" she says, reluctantly. She leans away, not wanting to smell the alcohol.  
  
"Something so fucked up happened. At the asylum. Few trials ago." Nea's reaching up to slide a hand under her hat. It falls off behind her; she doesn't notice. The dark hair beneath is damp and sweaty. She looks nervous and jittery. _Not a happy drunk today,_ observes Feng Min. "She got everyone. We had two gens. I was bleeding from, like, my fuckin' femoral or something... Just laying face down. Couldn't even sit up. I was trying to crawl away, but it was like I was having the world's worst period in my pants. Anyway. She comes... comes around, and grabs me. I couldn't kick her or anything. I mean, I was about to pass out. And then she... I heard it. I heard the hatch." She looks up at Feng Min now, her icy blue eyes clearing. "And then she dropped me in it. And I was out."  
  
_Sally let her go...?_ thinks Feng Min in wonder. She's _heard_ about things like this before, and although nobody present at the campfire now could claim to have ever seen it happen with their own eyes, it was rumored that sometimes, _sometimes_ , for whatever reason, a killer would choose to let the last of their number go. No one knew why, or even if the rumor were true. But now Nea's telling her—  
  
"She spared you?"  
  
Nea's whole face reddens. She looks angry. Distraught. Agonized, in a way. "This is your fault," she says with difficulty.  
  
"I... I'm sorry," says Feng Min, because she knows Nea's right without having to ask how it's her fault. She'd rattled the status quo. It might have been a mistake to inflict her insight on Nea, too. She knows that Nea keeps herself going by never asking too many questions. "I needed your help."  
  
" _Why?_ " Nea demands to know. "What the hell did you do?" She's got a bottle clamped between her knees, which she now pulls up and takes a sip from. "How do you know her _name?_ "  
  
It should be easy to just say something, right? Just _anything._ Feng Min should be able to look Nea in the eyes, like a friend, and tell her. She's wondering what to say, melting under the glare, when she feels something shift around her.  
  
The noise. It quivers like a single plucked violin string, then stops.  
  
"Hello?" Nea's voice is softening. Suddenly, the bottle appears before her; Nea is offering it to her. "You want a drink? It could loosen you up a bit?"  
  
Broken from her focus on the frequency by this sudden temptation, Feng Min overreacts with alarm, reaching to shove it away by pushing her palm against Nea's elbow. Nea yelps and sloshes some on herself.  
  
"What gives?" she snaps, looking somewhat humiliated, as she stares down the front of her wet top.  
  
"I don't need a drink," says Feng Min tensely. "I-I'm sorry."  
  
"You could have just said so," says Nea. "I— look, I'm not trying to start a fight, okay? I just want to know what the fuck is going on." She reaches out for Feng Min's arm, almost hesitantly; she seems too shy to actually touch her.  
  
Feng Min tries to think of how to answer, wavering on the thin edge of Nea's questions, but her thoughts are disrupted again by a ripple in the static. It feels... _close,_ close enough that—  
  
_It's him,_ she thinks. Feng Min sits up and then gets to her feet, forgetting for a moment that Nea is watching her with concern and frustration. She can't decide if his timing is awful or auspicious, but, either way, he's come for her, and she knows that he'll be expecting her to come straight to him.  
  
"Let's talk about this sometime... without the alcohol," Feng Min suggests, strained, not knowing if Nea will like that, given how suspiciously she's eyeing her.  
  
"Fine," says Nea. "Promise me."  
  
"I..." Nea's looking at her like she's afraid for her. "I promise. Okay." Feng Min will have to think about the repercussions of this vow later. For now, she checks to be certain that the other survivors are sufficiently distracted, and then she slips into the trees with one final look at Nea, who's still watching her as she leaves.  
  
The sounds of music and laughter fade quickly, and they're gone the moment Feng Min has crossed into the fog. Knowing that none of the killers can come close to the campfire, she follows the static. Walking towards the danger, out of the radius of safety. No wonder Nea had been looking at her the way she had. She suspects that she may have really lost her mind in some ways.  
  
It takes a few minutes of walking in a nearly straight line to find the Doctor. He's impossible to overlook even in the wall of dark trees thanks to the current that follows his every step.  
  
Feng Min doesn't know how long it's been. It feels like it's been a while, although she thinks it hasn't. She does know that she hasn't encountered him in a trial since she'd last seen him, which makes his appearance here in the forest that much more unexpected. He'd come for her. He'd really come for her— he'd _meant_ it. It's only now that Feng Min becomes aware that she hadn't been completely sure if she could believe him.  
  
It's a strange feeling, having him seek her out. She's only ever seen him before under her own pretenses. There's this weird dopamine-hit feeling at being back in his presence after he'd told her that he apparently felt nothing about her brain remained worth investigating. She wonders what _his_ pretenses are, if he even has any.  
  
[  What is that?  ] the Doctor asks instead of greeting her. He's looking down at her hands, and Feng Min realizes that she'd brought the gear sphere with her without thinking about it.  
  
"It's a Christmas present I got," she says awkwardly, holding it out to him. She anticipates a shock when he touches the metal, but she sees that he's got leather gloves on today, surprising her. She doesn't think she's ever seen him wearing those before. The long-sleeved coat he's got on today is unfamiliar to her, too; It's dark, concealing most of his silhouette in the shadows.  
  
[  Christmas?  ] With a scoff, he takes it from her; it looks as small as a golf ball in his hand. He seems to intuit its mechanism immediately, setting it rotating with a push of his thumb.  
  
"You arrived in the middle of the party. It's Christmas according to Dwight's calendar," Feng Min says, shrugging.  
  
[  Is it?  ] The Doctor seems faintly amused as he hands the gear sphere back to her. Feng Min tucks it under her arm.  
  
"Yeah," she says, taking a moment to enjoy the mirthful tilt of his shoulders before adding, "Should I have found you a gift?"  
  
As he turns to cut through the trees in some specific direction, The Doctor's laughter sends the crows streaking up through the canopy, shrieking. [  Really, now? I can think of a few things I might like.  ]  
  
Feng Min is surprised that he's playing along, although she's not sure what to make of that comment. "Don't— don't say something weird," she says, taking a few long strides to keep up with him as she swats branches out of the way.  
  
[  Fortunately for you, the only thing I require right now is your attention.  ] The Doctor makes a motion with his hand as if indicating that Feng Min still isn't walking fast enough for him, although she's already doubled her pace.  
  
"Right," she says, trying to get a look at his face in the shadows. "I was going to ask why you came for me."  
  
[  You'll soon see,  ] he says, and he doesn't elaborate, increasing her confusion.  
  
Should she be afraid or concerned about where he's taking her? She's not. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Feng Min hates that she's just not certain. So she walks in silence with him, trying to keep her head clear, letting her eyes drift unfocused in the darkness. She knows it's just _her_ in her head right now, but how can she be sure?  
  
The thing that she's been struggling with the most is that it feels _right_ to be near him, like the magnet force of the pull inside of her is at rest for the moment. Before, she realizes, she'd felt drawn to the hospital, thinking it was what had called to her. But the focal point of the static has always come back to Herman Carter, long before she'd become aware of it.  
  
It's so dark, and the mist so heavy, that the gradual change of the flora around her happens imperceptibly, at first. The humidity begins rising, the chill in the air dissipating. The soil beneath her sneakers becomes spongier, damper. The smell of pine sap and ashes and rain turns to noxious perfume and decay.  
  
Feng Min comes to a stop. In the light of the Doctor's glow, she looks at the plants they're surrounded by. She sees wide, waxy leaves. Vines. Large tropical flowers. Astonished, she realizes that he's led her to a realm in the nightmare that she's never seen before.  
  
"Where are we?" she asks. Her voice sounds small and muffled in the heady atmosphere of the rainforest.  
  
[  Look,  ] the Doctor says, and he moves ahead of her. She sees that there's an opening through the palms, and she follows him through it.  
  
There's a clearing there, and the roaring of waves. Feng Min turns to look. There's a small, sandy beach, and an ocean that she knows is surely an illusion of the Entity's, but it seems to stretch out into the horizon forever and ever, and it makes her heart jump and her breath catch in her throat with a longing for freedom.  
  
Up on the beach is what looks like a little motel. It's got a bright, flickering neon sign, written in a language that Feng Min doesn't recognize or understand. It's falling apart, the roof mostly caved in. The beach itself is a chaotic scene— umbrellas, lounge chairs, towels, and more are thrown around haphazardly, as if the area had been cleared out very abruptly, without any warning. There's a deep sunset at the very edge of the sky above the water, turning the ocean crimson and letting stars come through the night spread above. The white sand glows lilac beneath it.  
  
It's beautiful. And yet it makes Feng Min feel the same way any other place in the Entity's realm does: there's a distinct feeling that something awful happened here. Dropping to the ground, she pulls her knees up so that she can unlace her sneakers and take them off. When she does, she stands up and digs her feet into the sand, amazed at just how familiar and real it feels.  
  
Nearby, the Doctor is motionless, looking out onto the ocean, his expression betraying nothing, as usual. He looks a little strange in his long, dark cape there on the beach.  
  
"What is this place?" Feng Min asks him, kneeling to pick up a colorful object peeking out from beneath a towel. It's a fashion magazine, dated _07/1993._ She flips through a few pages of blandly smiling models before letting it drop back on top of the towel.  
  
[  It is a dead zone,  ] the Doctor replies. His arms are folded across his chest. [  A place no longer in use.  ]  
  
She thinks she knows what he means. There can only _be_ one meaning. "This was a place where trials happened?"  
  
[  Yes,  ] he says.  
  
Feng Min reaches out to run her hand over the colorful nylon pattern of a beach umbrella, still propped up at an optimal sun-shielding angle. "What happened to the killer that was here?"  
  
[  I can't answer that,  ] the Doctor responds, and he sounds displeased, like he wishes he could.  
  
There's a slight warm breeze coming in from the west, carrying with it the salty edge of the ocean. Feng Min badly wishes to go running into it and then swim just to see how far she can go. She tries to imagine what it must have been like for trials to happen in this place. Where the generators might have been. What all the best hiding spots would be. It's a sad thought.  
  
"How many survivors and killers have come and gone from this place?"  
  
[  Too many to count.  ]  
  
That answer gives Feng Min some idea of just how long the Doctor has been in the Entity's realm. She'd had a feeling it was far longer than she's been there— not that there's any conceivable or realistic way to measure time here, not with the way it seems to stretch and stop and reset at will.  
  
The Doctor goes silent, as if he's allowing her another couple of minutes just to take in the view, and then he says, [  Come,  ] and walks her back into the trees. Feng Min is relieved to leave the eerie little vacation spot behind.  
  
This time, she pays close attention, and she watches as the plants slowly transform and change around them with every step. The humidity evaporates, and the palms turn to birch and alder and oak, and then those begin to change color and drop their leaves all around them. When she sees the moonlight coming through the tree line, Feng Min moves ahead of the Doctor and breaks through first.  
  
It's a high school. She turns towards him. Another dead zone...? His stare back at her seems to say so. The sky's turned a deep black, and the moon is full; it looks like it's around midnight. Banners outside of the school seem to indicate that some kind of event is happening inside. Feng Min heads right for the front doors; they're unlocked. He follows her at a leisurely pace, taking his time as she moves into the front foyer.  
  
Ordinary in every way. Feng Min feels strangely unhappy in the school's dark, empty halls. Her wandering takes them to the gymnasium, which is fully decorated for a dance. Homecoming? Prom? She isn't sure. There are abandoned snack tables; when she leans over to look, she sees that the bowls are still full of clear, bright pink punch. Streamers and confetti are scattered all over the place. A colorful floor decal proudly declares the school's team name: the _DEVILS._  
  
She suddenly doesn't have any questions about this place, and when she turns to leave, he simply follows her, and he takes the lead again only once the fog closes around them.  
  
The Doctor guides Feng Min through a series of places that she's never seen before. They encounter a forest and lake with a small, modest one-story cabin attached to it. The cabin gives off highly sinister vibes, and he seems to think so, too, because he doesn't go near it, and they move beyond that realm. They pass through a gated, wealthy suburban neighborhood lined with pastel-colored homes and neon convertibles and blood splatters on the sidewalks. He shows her a summer camp, a serene little place with colorful tents and a large mess hall.  
  
Then there's an airport, with gates and a baggage claim and everything. The layout is confusing, twisting in and out, and although there are signs everywhere, they get turned around a few times. Feng Min imagines that surviving a trial here would have been very difficult.  
  
They take a break there. There's a kiosk nearby with overpriced snacks and drinks, along with other random items. Feng Min wishes she'd brought her backpack. She breaks open the display case with a few determined whacks of her elbow and grabs a few packs of cigarettes, hoping they'll earn Nea's favor later. The Doctor's taken a seat in the waiting area in front of gate B14, and once she's fit everything she can into her pockets — candy included — she heads back over to him.  
  
[  You have a sweet tooth, I see,  ] he says.  
  
"Do you?" Feng Min holds out a package of Skittles at him. She's still not really sure if he can move his mouth enough to actually put anything in it.  
  
[  My tastes are expensive,  ] he says, eyeing the candy with distrust. If he could roll his eyes, she imagines he might, right now.  
  
"Doesn't answer my question," she says, smiling despite herself.  
  
The Doctor gets up to lead the way out again. [  Let's focus. We still haven't found what we're looking for.  ]  
  
"What _are_ we looking for?" Beyond the _DEPARTURES_ sign of the gloomy airport, the forest awaits, and as soon as they enter the fog, the dead zone behind them slips out of sight.  
  
[  The barrier,  ] he says simply, and he just tells her to wait and see when she tries asking about it.  
  
The next place they uncover is some kind of prison. It's nothing like the Institute— this place is a _true_ prison, a high-security facility for serious criminals. It has multiple floors stretching up many stories. The cells are close together and cramped; bland beige paint is peeling from the walls. It's a claustrophobic place with a suffocating atmosphere. Every step up the industrial-built metal staircases rattles and echoes. It would have been nigh impossible for a survivor to go undetected here with a killer looking for them, she realizes, and she's glad, again, that the places the Doctor has been showing her have been long since abandoned.  
  
Feng Min takes a quick look into one of the cells. It's sparse, with a toilet, sink, and a bed. That's it. She looks over to him. He's standing at the head of the staircase, waiting for her. As she moves back towards him, she chances asking, carefully, "The... the kind of prison the Institute was... It wasn't like this, right?"  
  
[  No,  ] the Doctor says, apparently amenable to answering. [  The site dealt with inmates of a different breed. Political prisoners. War criminals. Spies. Defectors. Those whose actions put the public and the country at risk.  ] He's not looking at her as he heads back down the stairs to the ground level.  
  
She'd guessed as much, already, between everything she's seen and heard and experienced through his memories, but to have it confirmed is sobering. "So it wasn't a place designed for serving out long sentences."  
  
[  It was a place where sentences ended,  ] he says with finality.  
  
She thinks about that as they move through the forest. Spies, defectors. What does she know about those things? Not much. Her world view, her experiences— they couldn't be any more different. Her confusion regarding who and what he was, who he might still be— none of it is getting any clearer for her. What had he been searching for, through all of that experimentation?  
  
And why had it brought the Entity so close to him?  
  
Feng Min expects them to find another realm, but they don't, or they can't. The forest seems to swallow them up this time, leading them through indistinguishable trails of trees, allowing for no true sense of direction. The Doctor doesn't seem to be disturbed by this; he only keeps walking. She understands why when the darkness begins to change around them. It gets _thinner_ somehow, like reality is negligible in this area of the forest.  
  
The gaps of shadows between trees grow larger, and the Doctor moves towards the empty spaces. Soon, she sees a new sort of light. Not the cold silver-blue coming from him— it's gold, just a ribbon of it limning the air like a freeze-frame of a lightning bolt. She doesn't know what she's looking at, really, until she gets close to it.  
  
It's some sort of hole, she realizes. Some kind of cut in the shadows. She doesn't understand how it exists even as she looks at it. She's compelled to try to touch it. It just hovers there, amber and orange rays of light leaking out of it. She can feel heat on her face coming out of it, and she keeps her hands to herself.  
  
Beyond it, there is nothing; it is as dark and featureless as a jump into the void.  
  
"The barrier?" Feng Min asks, remembering what he'd told her.  
  
The Doctor nods. [  There are limits to this world.  ]  
  
"What happens if you cross it? Or touch it?"  
  
[  I think you can guess.  ]  
  
A painful death, most likely; Feng Min doesn't really need or want to know. She takes a little step back from it. The light is... familiar, somehow. The way it shimmers. She realizes that she's seen it before, around the sacrificial hooks— any time before the Entity showed up. _Oh._  
  
"The light has something to do with the Entity, doesn't it?" she murmurs, studying his face for confirmation, trying to see if she can read it.  
  
[  I believe so. But I can't confirm that. Its physical form doesn't exist on this plane.  ] The Doctor's bulging eyes take her in, the whole once-over. [  It isn't accessible to you nor I.  ]  
  
Keen for more information, Feng Min doesn't know if she should try to be cool about it or not. She ends up stuttering as she asks, "Then... where does it exist?"  
  
He raises a hand to his jaw. [  There is more than one layer to this reality. The one you call the Wraith understands it better than any of us.  ]  
  
The Wraith. She remembers him standing near the Nurse, how he'd seemingly waited for the two of them to finish their conversation. He'd looked at her in a way that had indicated lucidity, too. Is the Doctor suggesting that she go ask him? Feng Min doesn't think she has it in her to approach another killer, let alone under the stringent watch of Quentin and Nea— and probably, soon, the others, if she doesn't find a way to placate them both.  
  
"What does the Entity look like?" she asks eventually.  
  
[  No one has ever found it, so no one has ever seen it.  ] The Doctor moves away from the barrier; there is apparently nothing else to see. As they move away from it, the horizon seems to warp behind them, deflating and folding in on itself. Feng Min is disturbed by the way the shadows fill in the spaces left behind, pushing them back into the infinite sea of trees. She doesn't think she'll be able to find the barrier again on her own, and wonders how much more the Doctor knows about it.  
  
She's starting to become a little exhausted as they walk. Between all of the things stuffed in her pockets and keeping track of the gear sphere, Feng Min is ready to sit down for a bit.  
  
The shift into the next realm is immediately noticeable, because the atmosphere turns hot and dry. The sky soaks up a gradient of reds, magentas, and purples, casting dusky light over a sparse red desert. As they step out onto the dirt, a warm wind blows Feng Min's hair into her eyes. She brushes it away and sees that there are tall mesas bordering the area and cacti and sagebrush growing uninhibited. The only sign of civilization is a small brown building on the side of a stretch of highway. It has a couple of gas pumps attached — they're old, no slot for a credit card anywhere — and a sign, but the letters are all worn away. Feng Min knows one when she sees it, though: it's definitely a bar.  
  
"Do you know how to get back to the Institute?" The air is hazy with dust, making her eyes water. She reaches up to rub at them.  
  
[  Generally. I am sure you know that the fog doesn't always obey.  ] The Doctor looks down at her. [  You look tired.  ]  
  
"I _feel_ tired," she admits. "We don't usually go exploring out that far. It just... sucks to get killed when you're only trying to find something warm to wear."  
  
The Doctor reaches out for the swinging double doors and holds one open for her. Inside, the bar's dusty tables are all empty. There's one wall covered in license plates— all of them from Arizona, different decades and editions. Stools remain lined neatly up by the bar. Behind it, Feng Min spots dozens of colorful bottles— a lot of them look full, too. The glassware is still in place next to the taps. The cash register's drawer is partially open; glancing inside, she sees American bills. It seems like a pretty typical motorcyclist's rest stop.  
  
She watches the Doctor slide onto one of the stools at the bar and is sort of amazed that the seat can even support him. He's got his elbows on the counter top, looking lost in thought. She wants to ask about the specific purpose of him taking her to all of these places— is there something he's hoping she'll notice or recognize, or is he trying to teach her what he knows about the nightmare? Is it something else she doesn't understand yet? And why? The more she learns about the Doctor, the more questions she ends up having.  
  
Feeling anxious in his presence, Feng Min's attention sweeps back towards the bottles, and then she slips behind the bar. The sink still produces water when she runs the tap, so she starts rinsing glasses out after setting the gear sphere on the counter top. She looks up at the array of alcohol, her eyes glazing over. Lots of different labels. Most of them look pretty dated. She reaches for a bottle of rum with an unbroken seal. _Just one drink_ , she thinks. Just while she's here. It's not like she'll know how to find this place again. She knows that taking a shortcut to courage like this probably isn't going to work out well, but she has questions she wants to ask that she can't bring herself to voice.  
  
And she's been _good_ , hasn't she? She'd resisted the last two times, and the stakes then were much less important. Feng Min _knows_ that she's just resorting to the same old excuses she used to justify her bad decisions back in the real world, and yet...  
  
[  I thought you'd hoped to give up drinking,  ] observes the Doctor, cutting into her thoughts. The fact that he's both closely watching what she's doing and commenting on something he'd only ever voyeured upon in her memories — _not_ something she'd ever brought up with him herself — immediately embarrasses her, but it doesn't seem like he's at all concerned about hurting her feelings or offending her, so she makes up her mind.  
  
Feng Min takes a deep breath and lowers her eyes. Her head hurts a little. "Yeah, well," she says bluntly, "do you want one too or not?"  
  
[  So you can watch me struggle to drink it?  ] He laughs, his heavy breathing racking up loud. [  I don't think so.  ]  
  
"I'm sure there's a straw around here," Feng Min says, checking the cooler. There's ice. She doesn't bother asking herself how it's stayed frozen for so long and grabs some for her glass.  
  
The Doctor hums, watching her move behind the bar with the bottle in her hand. He's removed the gloves at some point; they're laid out neatly on the counter top. [  You think you're cute, don't you?  ]  
  
"Um," she says, looking up into his steady eyes and secretly feeling kind of proud that she's not flushed from his condescending taunting like she usually might be, "you said it, not me." Feng Min cracks the cap on the bottle and pours the rum out over the ice, watching the cubes tumble over one another and float to the top. She moves around the bar and takes a seat at the stool to the Doctor's right, trying to ignore his staring as she shakily raises the glass to her lips.  
  
The fact that it tastes as good as it does is disheartening, although she'd expected that. The rush, after so long without, is almost instant; she's so unused to it now that it makes her throat burn and her empty stomach grow hot. She's both upset with herself and intensely relieved.  
  
[  I wonder if you've ever considered that it might be somewhat risky to get intoxicated around me?  ] the Doctor offers.  
  
Feng Min shakes her head. "Our deal's off, right? You've said it before. If you want to hurt me, you will. Does it matter if I'm blitzed or not?" she points out. The liquor's already making her feel a little bolder, which should be worrying. The person she becomes when she's heavily intoxicated is a side of her that she usually represses as much as possible.  
  
The Doctor goes, _hmmmh_ out loud, this time from his chest, and his frozen face just watches her take another sip. Feng Min looks down into her glass, and then up at his face, so twisted in such a state of alarm. The wires running down the side of his head crackle brightly, catching her attention.  
  
"Why don't you just take it off?" Feng Min asks, examining the equipment framing his head. The rig looks fine-tuned around his face, like it had been built specifically to stretch his features to the absolute limit, and not a bit more.  
  
[  I can't,  ] the Doctor says flatly. His teeth come together, jaw shifting.  
  
"Why not?" Her eyes trail up to the top of his head, where it looks like the device intersects with his skull.  
  
[  These restraints only hold things in place,  ] he says, understanding her line of thought. He waves a hand by his temple, flinging sparks down on the bar top. [  The facial paralysis is also the reason I cannot speak.  ]  
  
Feng Min is startled, but within the same moment, she's wondering why she hadn't figured it out sooner.  
  
[  You look more surprised than I do,  ] the Doctor says, the laughter ringing again against the little bar's low ceilings.  
  
A little spell of dizziness takes her when she tips her head back for another drink, and she tells herself to slow down, but instead she just swallows and asks, "How did it happen?"  
  
[  It's not obvious? The Entity,  ] he says, a hand lifting to the crown of his head, where his fingers press into the spaces between the cables and ports. [  It restricts what abilities it allows me to access.  ]  
  
Feng Min tilts her head, leaning in — swaying a bit — to try to have a look. "But you can still use telepathy...? Or whatever it is you want to call it. I can _hear_ you. And during trials, you always manage to get almost everyone with the... the static. The _madness._ "  
  
The Doctor shakes his head dismissively. [  Humans like you are easily manipulated. Your brains are simplistic. Like mice.  ]  
  
She huffs, both agitated and somewhat charmed by his arrogance. "Okay, whatever. If you're so smart, why don't you just try manipulating the Entity into letting you out of here? You understand it, right?"  
  
[  No,  ] he says. [ It is far more complex and more powerful than you could imagine. My research barely scratched the surface. Even suggesting that you could do something as simple as _manipulate_ it is failing to understand its nature. It is a force beyond comprehension. To even begin to understand it, one would need to find its corporeal form first.  ]  
  
Right. And, according to him, Feng Min recalls, the Entity's true form — if a living nightmare of death could even have such a thing — has never been seen. She believes the Doctor when he says that, even if she still doesn't understand why he's telling her these things. She ponders it as she swings her legs at her stool, feeling the tipsiness spread throughout her limbs. She drains the rest of the glass quickly and then spins on her seat towards him to reach out for his head.  
  
The Doctor sort of moves back for a second, as if uncertain of what she intends to do, but then he leans forward to let Feng Min's hands touch the top of his head. Seeing that he's receptive to her touch — maybe she should have asked first — she gently feels around the places where the ports are drilled into his skull. So this is how the Entity keeps an eye on him. It had been right in front of her face all along.  
  
"Can't you try, I don't know... rewiring yourself?"  
  
[  Of course,  ] says the Doctor, and Feng Min might be imagining it because she's getting buzzed so quickly, but he seems to be proud of her for coming to that idea. [  I've tried many times. The results have been less than promising. I've eradicated portions of my own memory in the process, and I only know that because of extensive record-keeping.  ]  
  
Feng Min lowers her hands, realizing something. "The Entity's scared of you," she says. "That's why it did this to you."  
  
[  _Scared_ isn't the right word,  ] the Doctor says. [  It does not feel things the way that you and I do.  ]  
  
"But," she insists, "it must think that you could be some kind of threat to it...? Or it wouldn't have... wired you up like this."  
  
[  I derive no pleasure from subservience to a god I do not believe in,  ] he says acridly.  
  
Feng Min reaches over the bar for the bottle of rum and pours more out onto the remaining ice, which has melted into slivers at the bottom of her glass in the evening heat. She thinks again about gods. How she'd never really been sure of what to believe in before she'd come to the nightmare, and how even after all of the shocking and impossible things she had seen, she still doesn't know. Quentin's faith might be unshakable, but Feng Min doesn't know what there is to believe in any more, or if there ever was anything there in the first place.  
  
"Did you mean what you said to me last time?" she asks quietly. "About the... _trauma._ In my brain. Do you really think that's it?"  
  
The Doctor slants his head at her sideways. [  Yes. Your brain activity is compromised in select areas of your right cerebral hemisphere. The particular damage you've incurred resembles that of many patients once processed at Léry's.  ]  
  
"You mean people used in your experiments...?" Feng Min asks, just to clarify. She's still struggling to understand the idea that she'd received brain damage somehow, because she can't think of a single time it might have happened.  
  
[  My research into thought control was based primarily on manipulating certain processes of the brain using electricity to expose vulnerabilities.  ] The Doctor reaches out to pull the glass away from her, and her fingers scrabble for it, but she lets him slide it across the bar top. He just lets it sway in his fingers, allowing the ice to swirl around inside. [  I'm sure you've heard of ECT.  ]  
  
"Yeah." Feng Min is eyeing the drink, half wishing he'd hand it back, half wishing he'd pour it out on the floor. "It's not... not really popular any more."  
  
[  It was controversial from the start. It's been poorly understood by the scientific community.  ] Lifting his hand, the Doctor extends a finger into the glass, and Feng Min thinks he's about to put it in the drink itself, but as she watches, a high-voltage electric charge bursts across the surface. The amber liquid flashes blue, then purple, before the bolt splinters into it, bursting like dozens of little violet flowers beneath the ice before going out. When the Doctor slides the drink back to her, it's completely melted.  
  
"You used it to hurt people." Feng Min brings the glass close to her chest as she leans into the counter. It's lukewarm now.  
  
[  I was authorized and encouraged to use proven criminals to further my research,  ] he says, as if correcting a fact.  
  
"So, what? You're going to tell me that you did it all for your country?" The rum burns on her tongue on this sip, and she coughs a little.  
  
[  No. It was never about that. I was recruited. Specifically selected. Saying 'no' was not an option.  ] The Doctor levels a look at her. [  But I was given unlimited access to anything I wanted for my research.  ]  
  
Feng Min reaches into her memories— or _past_ them, trying to remember what she knows. About Herman Carter. About his past. She tries to pull up the colors and feelings and impressions she'd gotten from her brief brush with his mind, and something surfaces: family. A brother...? No, two brothers. And...  
  
"Your father was an American soldier, wasn't he?"  
  
[  Yes. He came back from the Korean War only to die in Vietnam. It isn't a unique story.  ] Although Feng Min searches his immobile face for any sign of nostalgia or regret or grief, she can't find anything, not even the tiniest twitch. [  But, as you can imagine, it didn't help my impression of the government.  ]  
  
Feng Min thinks about how relatively comfortable her life has been. Her parents had struggled, yes— she knows that they'd always worked hard, so much harder than she'd ever been grateful enough for. But she's never lived in a world where she'd ever had to think about or worry about any of those things. Her parents have always been there, even when she'd tried her best to stay away and distance herself from them.  
  
"I'm sorry," she says, because there's nothing else to say, really.  
  
[  It was a long time ago. ] The Doctor makes a motion that's a little like a shrug; the electricity wavers. [  It's strange to recall memories like this. I think I prefer not to.  ]  
  
That's right, Feng Min realizes. He's telling her things directly. She knows she probably won't be able to handle direct transference again, so this might be the only way she can learn more about him and what brought him to this point. "I... I like hearing about it," she mumbles down into her glass.  
  
[  I know,  ] he says. [  You shouldn't get used to it.  ]  
  
Feng Min laughs a little, muffled, into the lip of the glass as she finishes her second drink, and then she sets it down, empty. Her head feels thick with it— it used to take her a lot more liquor to get properly drunk, which makes her wonder again just how much time has passed in the nightmare. The exhaustion is creeping up, too, making her slump against the counter.  
  
[  You should rest.  ]  
  
She tips her head up to look at the Doctor. _Was that genuine concern?_ she's itching to say, or, maybe, _Are you worried about me?_ like he'd asked her once.  
  
But she just says, "Yeah," and gets up. She proceeds to stumble almost immediately as the world tips sideways, and she catches herself on the stool again to regain her footing. The alcohol's really hitting her now, and so with it the regret; she can feel him watching her critically.  
  
There's a couple of couches set up by a pool table, and Feng Min immediately heads over there. She sinks into the soft cushions and feels a lot better as soon as she's not on her feet; the dust that comes flying off of the couch doesn't even really bother her. The Doctor sidles over, as well, bringing with him the warmth of the static. When he takes a seat next to her, she lets herself bask in it a little, watching the current dance across the floor and then disappear.  
  
The Doctor stretches his legs out like he intends to rest them for a bit, and leans back into the cushions. Studying him, Feng Min tries to understand why being in the vicinity of his glow feels so comforting. Compelled by a surge of loneliness — physical, emotional — she leans into that comfort and edges close enough to him to slide an arm over his chest. It's not something she'd do, ordinarily, but right now, it feels like the _only_ thing there is to do.  
  
The noise goes quiet, as if testing, or resetting, and then the Doctor shifts to accommodate her, his arm curling up around her waist. Feng Min tips her dizzy head onto his shoulder and holds her breath, disbelieving. He isn't pushing her away. He's not looking at her, either, though— the flaring eclipse of his irises nearly disappear behind the black pupils as he stares unblinkingly into the lights on the ceiling.  
  
Carefully, she allows herself to relax, just a little bit, her body sinking against his side. He smells like the hospital does— like chemicals, snow melt, smoke. Is the contentment she feels — the sense of being grounded, of being pulled back to shore — real, or not? If it feels right, does the answer to that question even matter?  
  
And why? Why him? She's still lost. Brain trauma? It can't be that easy, can it?  
  
The Doctor's hand is snaking up the length of her spine, pausing between her shoulder blades, before his fingers trace up the nape of her neck to stroke gently through her hair, sending little tingles over her scalp. Feng Min wonders if maybe she's fallen asleep already and is dreaming it.  
  
"Herman," she murmurs.  
  
[  What?  ] She imagines that he could read her thoughts right now if he wanted to, with his fingers on her head, but he's asking her, anyway.  
  
"I'm choosing to trust you," Feng Min says, hoping that she won't regret it, kind of expecting him to call her stupid or foolish or sick again for her blind leaps.  
  
He just sighs, and his arm tightens subtly around her to hold her against his side. Maybe that's answer enough.  
  
In the monody of noise, as her mind searches for sleep away from the roiling black whispers, there is a sense of despair. A knowing. A feeling of impending change.


	11. no one escapes death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! The last month has been a little rough for me, hence the delay. Thanks for your patience. Mainly, I wanted to mention [this beautiful piece](http://pyradragon.tumblr.com/post/181895261055) (mildly NSFW) by Tumblr user pyradragon. Check it out!
> 
> Enjoy, and, as always, please let me know what you think <3

The murmur that wakes her first registers like the whispers do: incomprehensible humming, a vibration ringing on the same level as her soul. As consciousness spreads back through her, it becomes more obvious just where she is: the campfire.  
  
The survivors around Feng Min are engaged deep in conversation, and her waking nearby seems to go unnoticed. She sees that a group of them — Bill, Meg, Tapp, a couple others — are conferring about something nearby with someone she's never seen before. She stares, blearily, at the guest, before vertigo hits, and she turns away, reaching to rub her eyes with her hands.  
  
Was she transported back here by the Entity in her sleep? Killed...? What had happened to the Doctor? Disoriented, Feng Min tries to sort out what she last remembers. The bar. A place on the fringes of the nightmare, somewhere grey and fragmented in the fog. The Doctor... _Herman_ had showed her something she'd never seen before. A barrier.  
  
_There are limits to this world._  
  
Sitting up, she tries to sense for the noise, attempting to focus her concentration on the static. It's at a lull, she feels, but it's there. At least she thinks it is; it's like this dark spot in the back of her head waiting to be switched on. Feng Min wonders if she should try to obtain contact again by heading back into the forest, but she also feels so physically exhausted that she knows that it can't be a good idea right now.  
  
As the other survivors quiz the new guy — he's tall, dressed in outdated clothing with a haircut to match — Feng Min gropes at her pockets. She's pleased to find her belongings — well, Meg's holiday gift to her and the candy she'd pinched, anyway - are still in there. She's stuffing them into her backpack and has just picked up the cigarettes when Nea appears before her, at a crouch, as if cued.  
  
"What's that?" she asks, hands on her knees.  
  
Feng Min slides the sphere inside of her bag and holds out the two packs of cigarettes. "For you," she says.  
  
Nea takes them immediately, swiping the boxes away with fingers so quick that they're gone in a flash, but her tone remains skeptical as she says, "Right..." Feng Min watches her clear blue eyes flick over to the other survivors with the new arrival, before they land back upon her. "You'd better put on that backpack. We're leaving."  
  
"We are?" Feng Min asks, although she hardly feels surprised by the suddenness of this proposal. She guesses that Nea has a lot of questions; of course she'd take the first opportunity to ask them. As exhausted as she feels, she knows that she owes Nea some answers, so she closes her backpack and slips it over her shoulders. Nea looks like she's already prepared to leave— Feng Min realizes that she must have been waiting for her to wake up.  
  
"Going scavenging," Nea calls out, although it goes mostly unacknowledged by the others, who are used to seeing one another come and go. Meg waves.  
  
As she and Nea stalk towards the trees, Feng Min asks, "Who's the new guy?"  
  
"He says his name is Adam and that he's been here for two years." Nea shrugs. "Never seen him before." She's got a flashlight in her right hand and is using it to swat the branches away to clear a path through the forest. "Happens sometimes."  
  
Feng Min thinks about time again. Time, and how much it means and doesn't mean at all. "Do you think we'll ever know how many people have been brought to this place...? By the Entity...?"  
  
"You ask too many questions," says Nea in a short manner, her careful steps taking her neatly over a fallen log.  
  
"Really," Feng Min says. "How many people have you met here?" She hops over the log to catch up with her companion. "How long have _you_ been here?"  
  
She doesn't really expect Nea to answer either question, and is surprised when she responds to the latter, very quickly: "Almost five years."  
  
The number isn't a lot. Feng Min knows that. Five years is just a drop in the bucket in the full length of a human life. But five years is a quarter of a life for someone Nea's age — close to her own age — and in that moment it seems like a _lot_ , like an unfathomable amount of time to spend in the Entity's nightmare. She doesn't know how long it's been for herself, but _five years?_  
  
There's a reason Feng Min doesn't like to think any further than the next trial, or her next encounter with the Doctor. If she does, she knows, the precarious slide down to despair is just one dark thought away.  
  
" _God,_ " she whispers.  
  
" _That_ asshole can suck it," says Nea bluntly. "There's been people who say they've been here for, fuckin'..." She makes a disgusted noise. "You know Jake? Claudette? At _least_ ten years. Both of 'em. I think."  
  
This is something Feng Min hadn't known yet, about either of them, and it makes her feel sad and nauseous to hear. Part of it is empathy, but there's a selfishness to the feeling, too, the self-preserving part of her frightened of the possibility of that happening to her, too. She doesn't know if she has it in her to hold out that long, or how the others have been doing it. Is it because the Entity has offered them no other options? The lack of _choice_ is the most frightening aspect of all, her future unfolding out before her in the form of one bad omen after another.  
  
The mist takes on the hue of an aurora, the full moon gleaming like a pearl as the clouds pull away. The greenish sky is instantly recognizable; a look exchanged between herself and Nea confirms to Feng Min that they're somewhere on the Autohaven Wreckers grounds. The smell of rust and the towering piles of scrap become obvious once they're past the tree line.  
  
Feng Min knows that they're not _really_ out scavenging — she knows that Nea is eventually going to redirect this conversation to what she's been up to lately — but it still makes her nervous to be in the Wraith's realm. She remembers something Herman had told her yesterday about him. Something about the Wraith understanding the nightmare. Understanding its reality. She's still not sure what conclusion he'd wanted her to draw from that information.  
  
"It's fine," says Nea, apparently having caught the worried look on her face. "I brought extra batteries and everything." She holds up her flashlight and clicks it on and off a couple of times, as if to remind Feng Min what it does. She's used to seeing Nea pull off some impressive maneuvers in trials using it, and she knows that the Wraith is particularly sensitive to light, so it does reassure her, just a little. Not that she'd admit it, if she were put on the spot.  
  
"And if your aim sucks?" she prompts. "I'll be watching."  
  
"Well, we can't all be pro gamer snipers, or whatever," says Nea.  
  
"I don't play any of the sniper characters in _Mistgrid,_ " Feng Min responds, although she suppresses a smile.  
  
"Shut up, nerd." Nea gives a good-natured eye roll before she approaches the gas station. She pauses to scan around the rusting old pumps, listening, before she seems to decide that she hasn't heard anything suspicious and climbs in through a side window. Feng Min follows her, struggling to haul both of her short legs up on the sill before swinging her body over. It's a lot easier to get herself over obstacles when she's got the momentum that comes with running.  
  
Nea's digging around in the drawers below the dust-caked cash register. She slides around a pile of yellowing receipts and produces a few rusty paper clips, which she tries carefully to test for flexibility. Feng Min watches as one paperclip implodes into a little pile of dust between Nea's fingers and shakes her head.  
  
"Wasn't that a team game?" Nea asks her suddenly.  
  
Feng Min moves into the aisles, pushing aside a few cans to see what's left on the shelves. "What?"  
  
"The game you played pro for," says Nea.  
  
_Oh._  
  
It feels like it's been a long time since Feng Min has sat down and really thought about video games. She'd given up on them so completely before the Entity had found her— gone straight from a life of nothing but escapism to cold, harsh reality, and then discovered a new form of escapism entirely within vice. And then she'd found herself here.  
  
"Yeah." She shrugs her backpack off and lets the straps slide down into the crooks of her elbows.  
  
"But you're not a team player," says Nea, pointedly, staring directly at her from behind the register.  
  
Feng Min first wants to say, _This again?_ or maybe _So what, get over it,_ but Nea's right. About her selfishness, her impulsiveness. The way she's always placed her survival over the others' from the start, from the very first few trials. She knows that she's not the only one who does it, not the only survivor willing to abandon allies to keep themselves from harm, but she thinks she's definitely the only one that's been sneaking around talking to one of the killers. It's what makes her _deserve_ to be the one that Nea's got under the microscope like this. She wonders if _that's_ where Nea's going with this. If she is, Feng Min doesn't think she's very well-prepared to defend herself— or at all.  
  
"I was," she says quietly. "I thought I was."  
  
"So what happened?" Nea's procured a can of spray paint out of a crate. She's got it in her left hand, shaking it rapidly, but it must be dried out, because Feng Min can't hear the telltale _click-clack._  
  
"I don't know what you're asking me," says Feng Min, which isn't a lie, but Nea's direct questioning is making her wilt, a little.  
  
Nea lets the can clatter to the floor, and Feng Min flinches at the sound. Nea shoots a look up at the ceiling, like she's thinking, and slips around the shelves to walk into the garage. Feng Min follows her to find Nea leaning into the driver's seat of the green pickup truck there, combing through the glove compartment.  
  
"Did you miss your old home? When your family moved to the U.S.?"  
  
The words _home_ and _family_ bring her parents' faces to mind immediately. Feng Min winces, turning away from Nea to look through a locker. "I... I didn't really miss it," she says, eventually. "Because my parents were coming with me." That had been all that mattered, when she was little. Everything had been so simple, then. All black and white.  
  
"Lucky you," says Nea from inside the truck, on her hands and knees over the seats. "I hated it. It was so different from Sweden."  
  
Sweden. Feng Min finally now has a place to put to Nea's accent, which she hadn't yet been able to identify.  
  
"Was it hard for you?" Feng Min asks softly.  
  
"I was lonely," says Nea. It's a difficult confession, and her expression shows it. "But I also wasn't really... wasn't really doing anything to help myself."  
  
Feng Min mumbles bleakly, "I get that."  
  
"Come on," says Nea, pulling herself upright in the driver's seat. She pats the passenger spot next to her and jerks her head at it.  
  
Sighing, Feng Min crosses over to the other side of the truck and pulls herself up into the seat. "Nea..."  
  
"Shut up. I'm still talking." Nea's hands are on the steering wheel, gripping and releasing. "I was a shitty kid, but I didn't do anything _that_ bad. Not so bad I'd deserve to be someplace like _this._ " She shoots Feng Min a sharp look. "So that can't be true for _you,_ either."  
  
With an uncomfortable hum, Feng Min notes, "I guess you've been thinking about the 'are we in Hell' question again...?"  
  
"Be _serious,_ " says Nea, pained. She leans into the dashboard. "I'm trying to be real with you. Look, I don't really know where I was going with all of this..." She ducks her head, her hard mouth twisting. "I just want to know what you're... what's going on." She's got the cigarettes out of her backpack, sliding the driver's seat back so that she has some room to lean over and strike a match.  
  
"'What's going on,' huh?" Feng Min repeats weakly, disarmed by Nea's plaintive honesty. She reaches to begin cranking her window down, but the closed garage door doesn't provide much ventilation, anyway, so when Nea offers her the pack of cigarettes, she just takes one, because it's not like it's going to kill her when so many other things will first.  
  
Nea even lights it for her, motioning her close over the armrest, using her own hand to shield the flame of the match from Feng Min's closely hovering lips. When she pulls it away to shake it out, Feng Min leans back, taking in a lungful of smoke. The thick, bitter taste of it is worse than she remembers, but she holds it in her mouth for a few seconds before directing it out of her window.  
  
"It's something to do with one of the killers." Nea's staring right at her, still, unwilling to back down. "Quentin told me." She adds, quickly, "Don't get pissed at him or anything. I really had to dig at him."  
  
Feng Min isn't angry. Mostly, it makes her anxious. "Who else did you tell?"  
  
"No one," says Nea. "So what is it?" She lifts her feet and plants her sneakers up on the dash, askew of each side of the steering wheel, as she leans into her reclined seat. Feng Min gets the impression that she's only feigning the casualness from the look of consternation on her face.  
  
She needs to tell Nea _something._ Even if it's not every detail of the truth, she needs to be honest. As awful and irrational as it all sounds.  
  
"I don't know if you're going to even believe me," Feng Min says. She watches the ash on the tip of her cigarette collapse into a little pile on her thigh, which she reaches to wipe away, smearing it like chalk on her jeans.  
  
"You're freaking me out," says Nea, irritably. "Just tell me."  
  
_Say it. Just say it._  
  
"The Doctor," Feng Min forces out, looking staunchly down at her lap, her shaky fingers letting the cigarette drift to her lips again. "I can talk to him. I mean... I can _hear_ him. In my head." Her free hand rises to her temple. "It happened the... the first time I ran into him, and it wasn't supposed to happen, and I wanted to know why, so I..." Saying all of this out loud brings about a strange, out-of-body feeling that makes it hard to recognize her own voice. Feng Min rubs her sweaty hands against her knees, the cigarette shaking between two clamped fingers. "So I went and found him, and he wasn't... He didn't try to kill me, or anything. He wanted to know why, too, so that's what..."  
  
Feng Min trails off, unable to follow her own story, alarmed by how dangerous and foolish it seems when talked about in this manner, when she doesn't know how to fully justify her decisions to Nea or even to herself.  
  
"The Doctor? _That_ fucking psycho?" Nea's expression of betrayal and confusion slides quickly to revulsion and fear, and she's grinding her cigarette out on the dashboard only to reach for another. " _That's_ who you're out there with?"  
  
"I'm not—" starts Feng Min, her defenses rising, "I know what I'm—"  
  
Nea's harsh look of disbelief shuts Feng Min up quickly.  
  
"Sorry," she says, the word numbing her lips. She stares into the smoke, letting her eyes unfocus, stinging from it.  
  
"You have to stop. Whatever you're doing, you need to stop," says Nea, looking disturbed. Her chest expands on a hard inhale, rising under her loose shirt. "The Entity... the killers... they're all the same. You _can't_ trust them. That's how it is here."  
  
It's a difficult point to argue. Feng Min hasn't been here as long as Nea has. Or for the apparent eternity the nightmare has existed. No one truly knows long it has been, only that it can't be measured.  
  
"People have tried," continues Nea, leaning into the window on her side. "There used to be more people here who... who knew some of the killers. Like Laurie and Myers. I remember this one guy... I forget his name. It was a long time ago. I was still getting used to it. And I remember, just, I was called to this trial, and he was there, and he told me, 'that's my daughter.' It was this really nice place. A park. Had this little pond and boats and everything. And he went up to her and he tried to talk to her and then I watched her rip his head off." Nea lifts her palms to her face to cover her eyes, briefly, as if exhausted. "We started seeing him less and less, and then we stopped seeing him at all. He might still be out there trying to reach her. I don't know. But there was nothing he could do."  
  
"What if she didn't have a choice?"  
  
"So what if she didn't? They're still a part of the Entity. They're a part of that... the _sacrifice_ process. That never changes." Nea shifts unhappily in place.  
  
Feng Min thinks about what she knows now about Herman Carter. It's far from the whole story, but she thinks that she has enough spread out before her that she can't just concede to everything that Nea's saying. It's strange— it's not that Nea is _wrong_ , it's just that—  
  
"I know it sounds crazy," Feng Min says, "but it feels like there's something I... need him for." She moves her lips soundlessly after those words, unable to think of a way to explain the statement. How can she describe the quality of just _knowing_ , especially when it comes to someone like the Doctor, who, for all she knows, might be more entrenched in her mind and in her decisions than he's letting on, as much as she wants to think otherwise...?  
  
Nea's giving her a look somewhere between helplessness and disappointment. "He's messing with your head," she says, more aptly than she seems to know.  
  
Feng Min frowns, tossing her cigarette out of the window and hugging her sweater around her body. "I know he could, if he wanted to," she says. "I just don't think he is."  
  
"Why wouldn't he? Bet he'd get off on it." Nea's tone edges cold, even mocking, which agitates Feng Min more than she wants to admit.  
  
"Stop," she says thinly, stopping herself just shy of outright denying it, not wanting to come across like she's defending one of the killers tasked with tormenting them all. That's not it. It's not even Nea's fault, really; it's her own fault, for not knowing how to explain.  
  
"Fine. You want some fresh air?" Nea begins climbing out of the driver's seat. The whole truck groans and screeches as the weight shifts around inside and Nea slams the door closed. Feng Min takes that as a cue to get out, as well, and she follows Nea out of the garage.  
  
Outside, the moon hasn't shifted places, but the color of the night sky has deepened enough to make Nea pause. Feng Min knows that, like her, Nea is trying to recall how to predict the Wraith's dormant periods. The survivors' shared knowledge holds that the deeper the darkness, the more likely it is that the Wraith is awake and alert for intruders.  
  
They exchange a look — _no, not safe_ — and head back into the gas station. Nea heads right back for the pickup truck in the garage. "We're gonna have to crash here," she says, reaching around the back to unlatch the tailgate. "I think maybe three hours? But Bill would say to wait four or five, so..."  
  
"So we should just sleep," says Feng Min, relieved, both because she's ready to move on from the current conversation and because the exhaustion has got her feeling like a dead girl walking.  
  
They set up their sleeping bags in the bed of the truck, and then they head back into the station to drag some pallets from the scrap piles outside into the aisles, straining to be as quiet as possible as they lean them against the shelves, just in case they need to pull off a quick distraction later. Ideally, there'd be more than two of them out scavenging — there's always more safety in numbers — but she appreciates that Nea wanted them to be alone to ask her questions.  
  
Feng Min climbs into her sleeping bag, sliding her backpack underneath her head to try to alleviate the discomfort of the hard metal beneath the thin layer of insulation. Still, as far as sleeping arrangements go, it's not so bad— the cold ground next to the campfire is even more uncomfortable. The garage at least shields them from the wind.  
  
"So?" says Nea, finally, once they've both settled a little and are listening for the distant ring of a bell. "Is he the one who told you about _'Sally?'_ Who are they?"  
  
"Yeah," Feng Min replies, at a mumble. She's staring up at the roof of the garage, where mold appears to grow uninhibited. She can barely believe that she's talking about Herman with someone else. "He was a research scientist. And she was... a real nurse, once. Some of them... They talk to each other. They're just people. They _were._ "  
  
"And now they're people who torture and kill us," says Nea abrasively. "Did you forget that part?"  
  
"No," snaps Feng Min, but she feels hurt, and it shows on her face before she can hide it. How could she forget? _It's all I think about,_ she wants to say to Nea, but instead she just turns away.  
  
She feels something brush against her shoulder, and when she looks up, she sees that it's Nea's hand, which moves down to her elbow before reaching down to clasp at her own. Feng Min looks back towards her as Nea locks their fingers together tightly, clenching. Her grip is strange, the shape of her hand unfamiliar, but just the same size.  
  
"Feng Min," says Nea, stricken, "I'm sorry. I just..." She squeezes tight again, and then lets go, pulling her hand back to her chest like she's been shocked. "The shit you're telling me is scaring me. Doesn't it scare _you?_ "  
  
The immense guilt Feng Min feels hearing that apology makes her feel completely unworthy of it. "I know."  
  
Nea goes silent. They lie awake for a little longer, just trying to hear for any sign of the Wraith coming or going, watching as the night sky expands outside the window. It starts to get colder in the garage, and when Nea ends up shifting closer, Feng Min doesn't push her away; instead, she lets her head tip onto Nea's slim shoulder and listens to her slow breaths, and tries not to think about the future. 

  
  


Feng Min doesn't recall falling asleep, but she must have, because the next thing she knows, she's being shaken awake by Nea, who's kneeling above her, pale and frantic. And then the thing she notices after that is a sound— that of a bell, two chimes, at an unmistakably close distance.  
  
"Get up," Nea's whispering. "We need to go."  
  
Still half-asleep, Feng Min begins shoving her sleeping bag into her backpack. She's only got it half closed before Nea pulls her off of the tailgate and towards the exit. Stumbling, Feng Min nearly knocks over one of the pallets, causing it to rattle noisily against the shelves, sending cans scattering all over the floor. She watches Nea react to the mistake, the way anger and then fear both flash through her body like lightning.  
  
Feng Min barely has time to mouth, _Sorry, I'm so sorry,_ before the echo of a bell reverberates within the little store, and the Wraith comes into view. With a growl like splitting wood and dry leaves, he raises his club at the both of them.  
  
"Watch it!" shouts Nea, ducking low. The swing barely clears her head, knocking her hat askew. She goes careening into the shelves after that, and the Wraith advances upon her again for another stiff, precise swipe.  
  
Feng Min jumps forward and grabs for the pallet, the same one she'd almost knocked over, and she manages to hurl it into the Wraith's body as he lunges for Nea. He gives a spine-tingling snarl, and Feng Min watches, frozen with fear, for the couple of seconds it takes for him to crack it in two so he can step past the obstacle. He makes it look as fragile as the shell of an egg.  
  
Her delayed response costs her. The ridged end of the club comes sailing for her gut, and he's too close for Feng Min to get away. She tries to bite back the shout as it bites into her side, its hard edges splitting the skin between her ribs. She nearly falls over, collapsing back into the wall, stunned by both the impact and the pain, but then Nea's grabbing her by the shoulders and _shoving._  
  
"Go!" she instructs, and Feng Min gets what she's trying to push her towards. The open window.  
  
Dazed and only faintly aware of the blood pouring hot down her side — right down past the waistline of her jeans, soaking into her underwear, flowing all the way down her leg — Feng Min staggers for it. A concentrated push of energy lets her launch herself through the window, knowing that as soon as she's through it, she can be out of the Wraith's swinging range in seconds. She puts some distance between herself and the gas station as she hears Nea shout, followed by the sound of the Wraith howling.  
  
_Looks like her flashlight came in handy, after all,_ Feng Min thinks. She presses a hand to her side. Her warm blood is sticky against her palm, and the smell is making her nauseous out in the humid night air. She stands behind a pile of scrap metal, pondering her injury, too afraid to look and see how bad it might be. Nea still hasn't emerged from the gas station. Feng Min doesn't know if she should just head into the forest.  
  
It's the _Wraith,_ she reasons; she's watched Nea run circles around him, time after time. She'll be fine.  
  
Feng Min finds herself thinking again about what Herman had told her about the Wraith. At least she knows now that this particular killer is not amenable to conversation. She'd never gotten the sense that he'd be safe to approach outside of trials, anyway. She thinks that his presence when she'd gone to see the Nurse was more tempered by the Nurse being there than the other way around, and now she's sure of it.  
  
She hears Nea yell something, but she can't make it out. Then there is the toll of a bell, and after that is silence.  
  
Feng Min holds her sweater against her side, trying to soak up the blood. She thinks it's slowing down, a little. Wincing, she pulls it away and listens. There is no heartbeat; no tone indicating that he might be near. She scans her surroundings, trying to find a place where the atmosphere shimmers. When she sees nothing, she begins limping towards the gas station.  
  
Climbing back through the window she'd exited from is difficult, now that the adrenaline's wearing off and the pain is really kicking in. Gasping, Feng Min wrangles both herself and her backpack over the sill, and calls out, "Nea?"  
  
Nea makes her location known immediately, and she's apparently deeply unhappy that Feng Min has returned for her. "Damn it! Why didn't you leave?!"  
  
There's this wheezy quality to her voice that makes Feng Min's stomach turn a somersault. She follows the sound to its source. Her fellow survivor is crouched behind the counter, and Feng Min gasps when she sees the condition that she's in. She knows that she shouldn't — that by now nothing should shock her — but the sight of Nea's leg hanging at that angle is something she's never seen before. It's shredded up in a way that makes the phrase _hanging on by a thread_ come to mind.  
  
"Where is he?" Feng Min whispers urgently, kneeling next to Nea. The pain in her side seems like a numb inconvenience now that she's realizing that she's got to get herself _and_ Nea out of the scrapyard in one piece.  
  
"I don't know. He's going to come back," warns Nea, scowling. "He went looking for you. You need to leave. _Now._ "  
  
"Let's go," says Feng Min, and she reaches to try to loop one of Nea's arms over her shoulders. Nea tugs back, groaning, her pale hands coming up to try to push Feng Min away.  
  
"Are you kidding me? I can't walk on this leg," says Nea, her eyes bulging at Feng Min, like she wants to curse her out for thinking it was even possible. "Just go. I'll see you at the campfire."  
  
Knowing exactly what that means, a rush of fear overcomes Feng Min. No, not fear. Something like it, though. Something like _grief_ , too, as strange as it feels. Feng Min has found that grief somehow still exists in her heart, as useless as it is in this deathless world; it is in infinite supply.  
  
"No," she pleads, not wanting Nea to be asking her to walk away. Not believing it. "Come on." The blood on her hands is drying to a tacky crust, making her fingers feel slippery as she tries to pull on Nea's shirt to get her up. "Get up, Nea!"  
  
"Stop!" Nea spits at her, looking aghast with her efforts. She seems afraid, staring with those hard eyes of hers, and Feng Min realizes that it can't be easy for her to refuse the offer of help, and that she's really only making it harder for her. Paralyzed by this thought, and by the fact that she is going to have to walk away from her friend, Feng Min very nearly considers staying there with Nea and seeing what happens.  
  
But then the bell rings out, and Nea shoves at her again.  
  
"Nea," Feng Min tries; she can feel something salty track down her cheek, hit her lips. " _Nea—_ "  
  
And, somehow, she manages it. Although Nea shouts and pushes at her, Feng Min manages to struggle to her feet with Nea propped against her. Her injured leg is dragging in a grotesque manner as Feng Min tries to bear her weight and help her out of the gas station.  
  
There is the pounding of a heartbeat, somewhere nearby.  
  
"You— you fucking idiot," Nea whimpers, but when she realizes that Feng Min isn't going to let her go, she puts her weight into her good leg and tries to brace herself against the wall so she can stagger her way outside. They make it out through the back door as the bell tolls again, closer.  
  
The tree line isn't very far. Feng Min's practically dragging her fellow survivor at that point. Nea's leaving behind a bright red trail of blood in the grass. The pain in Feng Min's side comes and goes with each foot fall and the repeated pressure of Nea's mass dragging her down. She can barely believe it when they reach the trees; she's so relieved she could cry out.  
  
The dark mist is ever-present and always welcoming in its own malevolent way, and when they break into it, it seems to anticipate them, enveloping them in the blink of an eye, easing away the heartbeat and the fading toll of the bell.  
  
Feng Min lets go of Nea; she can't physically keep herself upright any more. She goes crashing to her knees, and, next to her, Nea collapses with a yelp. She rolls over onto her side, cursing and whimpering weakly.  
  
"That was _so_ fucking stupid, Feng Min," she barks— or she _tries_ to, but it comes out like a wheedling huff. It doesn't sound good.  
  
Feng Min turns slowly towards her. "I know," she says, weakly. "I couldn't—"  
  
"Fuck," says Nea, faintly, and she spreads out flat on her back, looking stunned. The color is quickly draining from her face, which has Feng Min crawling over to her side, panicking.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asks, uselessly; she can see what the matter is. Nea's lost a lot of blood. Feng Min reaches out to try to help her up a little and make her comfortable. Nea shifts uncomfortably and grits her teeth, her cheek resting against Feng Min's thigh. She'd hoped that by some miracle they might be able to make it back to the campfire, where Nea would be healed again, but it's starting to look like the road ends here.  
  
"Should've brought Quentin," groans Nea, her eyes closing. She's breathing out in short little pants that are becoming thinner and thinner. "Bet he could patch me up."  
  
"I don't think so," whispers Feng Min, staring down at Nea's blood-splattered face.  
  
"How about him...? The Doctor," says Nea. Feng Min isn't sure what she means by it, until she detects just a hint of mirth in the whisper.  
  
"I wouldn't trust him near you," she says, biting her lip instead of smiling.  
  
"Nice... that you... _care,_ " mumbles Nea, her hand clenching and unclenching next to Feng Min's knee. She can just make out the shape of her fingers in the moonlight filtering through the trees. She's not sure whose blood it is that's on Nea's hand, but she sees that more and more of it has soaked the ground beneath them both.  
  
A calling from somewhere deep within — the earth beneath their feet, the mist, the sky, her soul — is the first sign of the Entity. The thunder shakes Feng Min's mind loose and guides her gaze upwards to the canopy, where a hole in the sky has opened.  
  
A shower of light falls, a mist of brightly flickering sparks that swirl like shooting stars. Most of them fade into the night, but some of them begin to come together just above their heads, the light weaving in and out and over itself. The slow process of the Entity manifesting holds Feng Min as captive as it always does, and she just stares as the sharp edges and needle tips come into form out of the darkness.  
  
The claws flex and slide, in an impossibly delicate manner, beneath Nea's limp body. There's an overwhelming feeling of hatred, then— of wanting to reach out and wrap her hands around one of those spindly appendages and try to crack it in two. But Feng Min knows that she won't be able to do anything. Knows she couldn't even if she tries.  
  
The light begins to intensify as soon as it makes contact with Nea's corpse, and Feng Min watches as she just comes _apart_ , just like that, like she's being pulled into threads and wisps of fibers and smoke in the air. Except it's not that. It's _light_ , her body peeling apart into the light, the light collapsing back into the darkness. Staring into it feels like enough to make her lose her mind completely.  
  
Feng Min tries to turn away. The light doesn't let her. It wants her to look. It's asking her to look. It's _telling_ her to look. Telling her, right in the back of her head, in her brain, talking directly to her heart.  
  
When had the Entity begun whispering to her? Telling her to watch, watch as it took Nea, watch as it would take her, too, just as it had before, just as it would again, just as it _always would—_  
  
The light seems to explode outward around her, opening a thousand bright lesions on her body that shine white heat, and then—

  
  


Feng Min is shivering. There's a chill in the air, and the first thing she does when she comes to is fold her arms over her chest, hugging her body.  
  
She realizes the reason she's so cold; the floor is like ice. She looks down and sees familiar blue tiles, but she can't remember where it is she recognizes them from— at least not until she looks up and sees that she's in one of the grimy shower stalls at Léry's Memorial Institute.  
  
Getting to her feet as quickly as possible, Feng Min reaches for her side. The wound is gone; her shirt is in one piece, the skin beneath smooth and injury-free.  
  
Feng Min's immediate thought is, _Did Herman find me and bring me here?_  
  
There's no sign of Nea anywhere— nor her backpack, for that matter. Feng Min checks in the stall she'd woken up in and in the ones around it, but she doesn't see it, so she heads out into the hallway.  
  
The static is there, dense and foreboding and somewhere nearby. Feng Min anticipates it, watches as it flares across the floor towards her, but instead of the sense of connection she's become used to, the moment the electricity makes contact with her feet, it rolls up through her legs and plants its spikes in her brain, making her shriek and convulse painfully.  
  
_No._ This isn't right. Something is wrong.  
  
Feng Min slaps a hand over her mouth to try to silence herself as she goes bolting for the nearest window. She knows what this is.  
  
It's a trial. She's in a _trial._  
  
The heartbeat begins growing in her ears. Her scream has given her away. She wonders if he'd recognized her voice in it. Feng Min heads into one of the waiting rooms, slowing her steps down, trying to _focus_ through the static's corrosion of her mind.  
  
Quiet. She needs to remain quiet, find a generator, just get through the work and get out of here. She hunkers down with her back pressed to the side of a vending machine, listening as the familiar laughter of the Doctor begins echoing down the halls and through her head. It's followed quickly by a shout— who is that? Ace? Maybe the new guy?  
  
The survivor's footsteps come closer, so close that soon they're racing past the open doorway, and Feng Min braces herself as the heartbeat closes in. She's got her hands over her ears, even though she knows that it won't do anything to help her— the static has a way of getting inside, no matter what. She watches it as it ripples across the floor, the white glow of it blinding her with swirling, incomprehensible visions.  
  
Somewhere — very close, and then leading away again — the Doctor laughs again.  
  
The noise spikes through her brain, severing her tenuous willpower. The whispers blossom in its place, a simmering discordance that coats her mind in thick black tar and makes it hard to think. The pain makes her scream again, and even her hands over her mouth don't shut her up.  
  
Where is he? He has to be close, right? Feng Min isn't going to tell herself that this trial is going to be any different from any other. Like the Nurse had said, they have roles to play. Hers is to try to survive.  
  
Her scream _does_ draw someone close— Jake, who's approached so quietly that Feng Min hadn't even noticed him at all. She's glad to see him, especially because he looks to be uninjured, but what he says to her wipes any inkling of optimism from her mind.  
  
"There's only three of us," he says, his dark eyes focused right upon hers. "I'm pretty sure."  
  
"What?" Feng Min manages, trying to understand his words through the whispers. It's like hearing a different song in each ear and not understanding either.  
  
"There's me and you and Adam. That's it," says Jake. A muscle in his cheek twitches. Feng Min thinks the madness is getting to him, too, but Jake's always had the ability to restrain himself in a way no other survivor can. She wishes she knew his secret.  
  
Jake pulls Feng Min to her feet by the arm and towards a generator. She follows him in a state of confusion, trying to understand what this means for their situation. It can't be good. She can't tell what direction the noise is coming from, any more, or if the Doctor is even close, or not. Somewhere — she doesn't know where — she hears Adam shout again.  
  
Jake presses her down in front of the generator, and Feng Min stares at it, the loose parts and coils that need rearranging. Her field of view constricts, flashing in greyscale patterns. When she reaches in to try to realign a wire, she's hit with a wave of pain, and her fingers slip; the wire sparks, and the generator shorts out, blasting exhaust in Jake's face. He grimaces and falls back. The sound is deafening in the open hallway, and Feng Min is convinced that she feels something shift, in the body of noise— it's turning back towards them.  
  
Something insists on her attention. Feng Min turns her head in time to catch the glittering pink glow of an aura, a few hallways to her right side. She can see the Doctor's outline for a moment, distant, lunging over a generator. It's enough to tell her that he's still occupied with Adam.  
  
"It's fine," she warbles, just barely, at Jake. She reaches back in and grabs for the wire. It's still hot to the touch, but she tries to ignore it. It's not even that bad, compared to the pain in her head.  
  
Jake's staring at her, and then down the hallway, and he looks troubled. He edges back from the generator, and then, his expression shifting, he reaches out for her arm. "No," he says, suddenly, "no, we have to—"  
  
Feng Min becomes aware, all at once, that the heartbeat is right behind them, and the Doctor's laughter is there, too. She turns in time to see him right there behind her a baseball bat in his hands, and she wonders, _How? What happened?_ before she realizes: the aura she had seen was wrong. It's worse than the times it had happened before, when sometimes the images were hard to see, fading or blinking out. He'd looked like he was in another place completely. He had been so much closer than she'd thought.  
  
That's all she really gets time to consider, because the Doctor gives her this _look_ that reads incredulous somehow, and then he's swinging the bat towards her face.  
  
Shrieking, Feng Min drops low and goes colliding into a wall. It barely misses her head, and something sharp rips into her shoulder instead, shredding right through the flesh. She screams. The momentum is so powerful that the bat goes right past her and thuds into the wall next to her cheek with a strangely solid sound. She looks up in terror to see why— there are nails sticking out of the head of it, nails covered in her own blood, and the Doctor's reaching to give it a hard tug to loosen it from the wall.  
  
Feng Min jumps to her feet, biting back a howl and closing her hand over her bloodied shoulder. Nearby, Jake looks about ready to bolt, but he's watching her, taking in her delayed reactions. She hurries over to him just as the Doctor frees the bat.  
  
_Herman,_ she wishes she could call out to him. _Herman—_ But then what? She doesn't know. She's not going to plead for his mercy, as terrified as she is. But she's also completely taken aback by just how _intense_ the fear is, this sudden and jarring reminder of her place in the nightmare. Just prey. A scared little rabbit between the jaws of a predator, awaiting the inevitable bite.  
  
She can't. She can't say anything. Especially not with Jake right here. And he's not saying anything to her, either. The only thing in her head is the noise and the whispers behind it. His voice is nowhere in them.  
  
Jake takes off running past one of the treatment beds blocking an intersection of hallways. He splits off to the right at the last second, so Feng Min turns left. It's instinctive more than anything— she just wants to get _away_ and nurse her shoulder. She's looking for an open window or something — _anything_ — she can jump over, trying not to look behind her. She can't tell how close he is. The noise is so intense that he could be right behind her, for all she knows.  
  
A familiar carpet comes into view, and Feng Min realizes that she's run towards the office. Panicking, she tries to head back behind the reception desk and sees with terror that the basement steps are right there— and so, too, is the Doctor, who has chosen to follow her instead of Jake.  
  
He's got white bandages wrapped around most of his head, like a burn victim or something, and it's hard for her not to point out a similarity between the implements sticking out of his head and the ones sticking out of the end of the baseball bat, as if now were any time for conversation.  
  
Feng Min drops her hand from her ruined shoulder. Her blood is dripping all over his carpet. She watches as it soaks right into the pile and disappears in the dust.  
  
One bright red eye is fixed right on her. The last time she'd seen him had been so _different._ She'd let herself feel stability— a dangerous and foolish decision.  
  
It seems like he might be waiting for something, but it's only for the briefest moment, because then he's swinging the bat at her again, and although she's already halfway out of the open window across from his desk, he doesn't miss this time. The bat catches her in the side and _sticks_ ; she can _feel_ it, the way the nails puncture her belly and glance off her ribs. She screams as he makes this shuddery, running-out-of-breath sort of noise and yanks it free. Although she tries to thrash, she slumps over the window sill, her blood pouring down the wood paneling, and then he grabs her and puts her over his shoulder, one arm engulfing her middle.  
  
She sees Jake, then, running into the office just a little too late. He looks at her, and then he looks over and seems to realize where they are— where the _basement_ is. Feng Min digs her elbows into the Doctor's shoulder blades as he carries her down the stairs. Up at the top, she can see Jake just barely out of view, waiting to make a move.  
  
"Hey—" she wheezes, suddenly desperate to hear him say something. To hear Herman's voice. Not just the Doctor's laughing. "Wait—" She tries to twist around, groaning from the pain in her shoulder, wanting to reach up to his head, try to brush his neck or touch his scalp between the bandages. Anything to make him acknowledge her.  
  
He doesn't say anything. She listens to his breathing as he carries her down the rest of the way, heading towards the hooks, and then he—  
  
and then he drops her.  
  
Feng Min whimpers and cries out as she hits the ground, writhing as she tries to understand which hurts more— her shoulder or her side. She looks up and sees, through the wall of noise and the haze of pain, the silhouette of the Doctor above her, regarding her with silence.  
  
"Herman," she says, or _tries_ to say, but nothing comes out.  
  
He turns away and walks up the stairs.  
  
Feng Min thinks, numb from shock, that now she _knows_ that she must be seeing things.  
  
She listens to the heartbeats head back up into the office, and then the sound of Jake's muffled exclamation as he tries to find a way out somewhere up there. The sounds eventually fade away in one direction as she continues laying there in the basement.  
  
He'd let her go. He hadn't hooked her. He'd _let her go._  
  
_This is a bad thing_ , she thinks. She doesn't know how she knows. But she _knows._  
  
Feng Min lets herself roll over on the dirty floor, trying to shift her body away from the blood gathering beneath her, and stares at her surroundings. The basement always looks the same, no matter where she ends up encountering it. It's always like this, looking like a place someone put together by hand, some kind of underground shelter, the floor covered in old filth. But then there's the light.  
  
She's always hated the basement, and she thinks the light is why. It makes the basement feel like the strangest place in the nightmare, even in a world whose features constantly change— sometimes right in front of her own eyes. It's the light that's always felt strangest of all, coming out of the walls of a place supposed to be underground.  
  
She wonders, for the first time, where the light comes from.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
Feng Min looks up. It's the new guy. He's got a bunch of bandages wrapped around his leg, wet with blood, but he's holding a red tin box, and she sees that there's still a few rolls inside as he crouches next to her and begins making quick work of wrapping her shoulder. He starts off slow, but he seems to quickly get an idea of what to do.  
  
"Yeah," Feng Min says, although she couldn't feel more confused or disoriented right now. The Doctor had let her _go._ He'd injured her and let her go. That's not what they're supposed to do in trials. Isn't it?  
  
Isn't the Entity watching?  
  
Adam makes an attempt at padding the wound at her side and helps her to her feet. Just as he does, they hear the crash tearing through the sky.  
  
"Jake," Feng Min gasps, as his aura comes into view. She hadn't even seen that he'd been placed on a hook as Adam had been healing her.  
  
Something is off. Nothing seems right about this trial. Having only three of them to begin with, and then her aura reading failing, and then the way the Doctor had just let her go. Feng Min has a terrible feeling about all of it. Once Adam has helped her up to the top of the stairs, she pulls away.  
  
"Go," she whispers. "I'm gonna try to... try to fix a generator." Her shoulder's throbbing, and she's not sure she'll really be able to do anything with that arm, but she knows that she has to try. What else is there to do?  
  
Adam stares at her, but then he turns around and runs off in Jake's direction while Feng Min tries to find a generator. She's slowly trying to pull her focus back together above the static— the pain from her wounds is actually _helping_ , she's got to admit. It's giving her something else to concentrate on.  
  
It's not more than a couple of minutes later, however, that she feels the gravity around her reconfigure as the Entity comes to claim its sacrifice. Immediately after that, it happens again — so fast that she couldn't do anything about it, even if she set off running now — and Feng Min becomes aware that she is now alone in the hospital.  
  
The whispers begin again. This time, they are not soft. She walks down the hallways as quietly as she can, feeling more lost on the Institute grounds than she ever has before.  
  
When Feng Min finds the hatch, she doesn't feel the relief that she usually does— the sense of a shortcut gladly claimed, a way to skip through to an easy victory. This time, it doesn't feel right. There is something sinister about it now. She feels as though she has violated some important rule, even though this trial had unfair stakes from the start.  
  
The hatch sits there, waiting for her, a darkness deeper than death. She thinks she hears something inside of it, calling out to her. Maybe singing.

  
  


Back at the campfire, she finds Nea, as well as Adam and Jake. All of them — Feng Min included — are fine. There's not a spot of blood on their worn clothing or any markings on their flesh.  
  
Feng Min sits down next to the fire, overwhelmed.  
  
"Did you get the hatch?" Jake, from behind her.  
  
She nods. His hand brushes her shoulder, and then he's gone.  
  
The fire continues burning. At some point, Nea sits down next to her, and instead of saying something about their last encounter — there's so many things she could say — she just leans in towards her and asks, "What's the first thing you'd do if you got to go home right now?"  
  
Feng Min looks over at her. Nea's hair is concealing half of her face, obscuring her expression.  
  
"Come on," says Nea. "Answer."  
  
"Cry," says Feng Min, the first answer to come to mind. There's a painful knot in her throat. She feels like she could sob, right now, even though it wouldn't make sense to Nea or to anyone else at the campfire. Wouldn't even make sense to herself. "Probably."  
  
"That's a waste of tears." Nea shakes her head with a sorrowful little laugh and slides an arm around her shoulders, but she doesn't ask any more questions after that, and Feng Min's eyes stay dry.


	12. awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I last updated. A lot has been going on in my life, including both getting a new puppy and dealing with a cancer diagnosis in one of my immediate family members (and a subsequent move, so that that family member can be close by during treatment). So a lot's been rocking my boat along with the usual stresses of life, but... hello! I worked on this chapter the whole time I was gone. This is the 5th version of it, believe it or not. I went through so many different versions and directions with this one. In the end, I've settled for what we have now. It's not perfect, but it's what it needs to be, and I'm really happy to have it done. As I've adjusted my outline for this fic, I've realized that this chapter is the true midpoint of the story. I anticipate about ~10 more chapters, or maybe a little more. 
> 
> Also, **an important note!** During my time away, I revised all of the existing chapters. Most of these revisions involved cleaning up prose, small alterations to dialogue and grammar, etc, but some of the changes were more notable. Please see [this post](http://raycats.tumblr.com/post/183465148693/dark-noise-patch-notes) on my Tumblr for more details and for which parts I suggest re-reading!
> 
> This chapter is three chapters' worth of content. Yes, this is everything that was to be chapters 12, 13, and 14. Now, they are all chapter 12. This super-long mega-chapter is my apology to you all for taking so long to come back! I won't be doing another chapter this long again (okay, maybe the last one), so don't worry about having to devote whole hours to updates, sdjkfhsdjhkf. 
> 
> Additionally... **this chapter contains sexual content.** It is absolutely NSFW and this chapter itself is E-rated. It will be obvious when it starts and it will be obvious when it ends, just in case you want to skip past it. No major plot revelations happen in the middle of the fucking, lol. 
> 
> With [Mcote's blessing,](https://twitter.com/MCote_BHVR/status/1107265978058985473) let's get into this.

The exit gates don't light up when they finish the fifth generator.  
  
Feng Min is trying and failing to stop the bleeding. It's coming out of Quentin's thigh in pulses, splattering all over her shirt and speckling her forearms as she fumbles with the little bottle. The blood's making her hands slippery, so when she finally gets the lid off, the white powder explodes out and rains down on Quentin's red-soaked lap like snow, useless and irrecoverable. It quickly disappears, gumming the blood up into a coagulated slop that collects on top of the denim. Feng Min hisses in rage as she checks to see just how much she's spilled.  
  
Quentin's head rolls into the crook of her arm, but the movement is slack and not purposeful. His irises look distinctly grey in the blur of the hazy dream world, a place drained of all color and light.  
  
"Why won't it open?!" Feng Min screams over to Laurie, who's standing at the exit gate with her hand on the switch. She tries to staunch the wound with the heels of both palms while Quentin gasps shallowly, his violent trembles turning to a consistent shiver. She can see the light going out of his eyes, and she can't do anything but watch it happen right in front of her, just the way she'd been forced to watch it happen to Nea out in the fog, not so long ago. "He's about to bleed out!"  
  
"I don't know!" Laurie shouts back, distraught. Feng Min watches her give it another frantic yank before she looks back over her shoulder at their surroundings, nervous. Even with the slow-time movements in the dream world, the exit gates shouldn't take _this_ long to open. Laurie has been pulling on the switch over and over, trying to get a reaction from it. Not a single one of the three red bulbs is lighting up.  
  
In Feng Min's lap, Quentin's gaze has lost focus completely, pointing blankly up into the sky. She knows he's fucked, right then, and that there's nothing left she can do. The blood flow may be lessening beneath her fingers just from the sheer pressure she's been putting against the wound, but she knows that the blades had slid deeper than any styptic agent could ever fix. She _knows_ that. But—  
  
_Why is this happening?_ They'd finished all five generators. Krueger had nabbed Meg pretty early on in the trial, but then Laurie had managed to swap out with Quentin for a while, trying to distract the killer and keep him busy while Feng Min sneaked around to the generators scattered throughout the quiet little neighborhood and its preschool. Quentin had gotten slashed a few times, but nothing too bad. He'd always been good at escaping injury, or at least bouncing back from it, and usually once they had all the generators done, he'd be raring to go whether he'd been hurt or not, but now—  
  
She'd finished the fifth one herself. There's no way they'd missed any. Feng Min had _counted._ She _knows_ that they finished five generators. So _why?_ Why won't the gate open? They could have been out minutes ago, when Quentin could still sort of walk. She and Laurie could have gotten him through safely, between the two of them, if the gate had just powered up.  
  
The look on Laurie's face tells her that the other young woman feels just as disturbed as she does. And then Feng Min watches her gaze slip from her own over to somewhere behind her head.  
  
"Heads up, Feng Min!" Laurie cries out suddenly, breaking away from the switch. Her long legs send her off like a shot.  
  
The edges of the world around them, gossamer-soft and glimmering, make every movement feel slower and more difficult, like walking the bottom of a lake— a consequence of the sleep state Krueger could so easily put them in. It takes Feng Min a moment to react even as Laurie bolts away, her head is so dense and heavy with exhaustion. She gets to her feet as the song closes in, and Krueger with it, laughing as he approaches them from down the street.  
  
Quentin is already as good as dead when she lets him go. If he hasn't yet begun his death rattle, she knows he will soon.  
  
Feng Min sucks in a breath through her mouth and tastes ashes on her tongue as she starts to run. She watches Laurie launch herself into the backyard of a two-story house; Krueger follows her with a laugh like sandpaper. She can hear him call out to Laurie as he pursues her straight into the empty home: "Aw, what went _wrong?_ "  
  
It's the same question that's still violently ricocheting in Feng Min's head, but she can't allot herself any more time to contemplate what has happened. She hears a crash from inside the home, and then a thud, like something being knocked over, and, after that, a bloodcurdling scream from Laurie, one that makes her whisper, "I'm sorry," over and over under her breath even as the Entity breaks through the trial's boundaries for its third sacrifice.  
  
Although Feng Min searches for the black lock, heading to the places she knows it's wont to appear, she knows she's fucked as soon as she steps into Krueger's basement home and doesn't see the hatch.  
  
Hiding from the Nightmare in his own domain is useless. He knows how to walk the dream. When he locates her trying to slip out of the back of Badham Preschool and past the playground to the street, Feng Min doesn't even bother trying to run, although she still tries to land a few good kicks in before he gets her on the hook.  
  
"Fuck you!" she snarls, half-shriek. Krueger just laughs at her. As if to add insult to injury, he doesn't even stay to watch— he just walks away, as if saying, _My job here is done._  
  
Even though Feng Min knows that there will be no exit for her even if she _does_ break free, she still tries to reach up and see if she can wiggle off of the thing, gasping in pain. When she fails, provoking the thunder-crash of the Entity unfurling in the sky above her, she thinks, again, _What went wrong?_  
  
Like any nightmare, the landscape of the Entity's realm has always seemed mutable. But now, she finds herself thinking about it in the terms of a video game again, the way she did when she had first woken up in the realm, before the shock had begun to wear off.  
  
Feng Min wonders if the Entity is responding in a way a sophisticated game program might— trying to recalibrate itself, to throw unanticipated challenges at players who had become too familiar with its exploits and habits. Upping the difficulty. They'd missed something. They'd messed up somehow. That's what it's trying to tell them, right?  
  
_Then again,_ Feng Min considers as the death god's spines begin twitching in towards her, rippling like the lashes on the end of a whip, _there's no way the answer is that simple._  
  
There is no one left to come and save her. It has won. It will now feed on her, as it had before. As it would again.

  
  


Sleep becomes less common for her. It's not as though it was ever really _sleep_ to begin with, at least not in the sense of providing her any actual rest, but Feng Min's found herself just lying awake and staring into the campfire more often than not now.  
  
Venturing into the Bloodweb feels like scraping a dull razor blade over her brain, making her recall what it had felt like to wake up hungover and nauseous every single day for the greater part of a year. It's strange to feel that way, after spending so long in the Entity's nightmare, a place where everyday issues like hunger and headaches and sore throats don't really happen. So when Feng Min _does_ sleep, she sleeps lightly, never dropping too deeply into the black.  
  
On some nights, it pulls at her, and she knows what it is trying to say. Knows that it's asking her to let it share its secrets and impart its visions, so long as she allows it to exact its toll in return.  
  
Feng Min has never been certain of what exactly it _is_ that the Bloodweb chooses to extract as its price. The other survivors have always claimed not to know, but everyone could agree that there would always be a sense of something _missing_.  
  
So Feng Min doesn't really know if she can trust her aura reading any more. She's not sure if she _can_ after the last time. It _hadn't_ just been a symptom of the Doctor's madness, because she's experienced his madness before, and even though it could be torturous on the mind in a thousand different ways, it had never skewed her aura reading abilities before, and they had never failed her against any other killer.  
  
No— the problem could only lie with her.  
  
It's hard not to be distracted by thoughts of when she might encounter Herman Carter again. She dreads it being in a trial after the strange experience she'd had with him last time. There are still _so_ many questions she has yet to ask him. So many answers he still owes her.  
  
Attempts to reach the hospital through the forest don't work. Feng Min can't pick up any sense of him or the Institute among the thick trees, like the proverbial station just isn't broadcasting. She wonders — hopes? — he'll come for her again the way he did before, waiting for her in the trees beyond the campfire's barrier. She yearns to ask him about all of the things he'd shown her lately, and get his thoughts on the anomalies that have been happening in trials.  
  
Sometimes they're small. Like how Jake had pointed out recently, at the Asylum, that not a single wooden chest had appeared on the grounds. Typically, they could rely on checking through them for some first-aid supplies in a pinch, or some tools that might make the job go faster. There were none during that trial— not even in the basement, a spot that had always been reliable before.  
  
During another trial in the rain-choked forest, Feng Min and her fellow survivors discover that there are _just_ enough generators, and no more. It's an utterly hopeless effort; the Huntress, with her beastlike herding instinct, keeps them all so thoroughly distracted that not a single generator is completed between the four of them.  
  
After they are returned to the campfire, nursing phantom wounds, David and Bill get into an argument, with David upset that Bill had challenged his aggressive approach with the killer.  
  
"We were all fucked, anyway!" David shouts. He's right in Bill's face, having started ranting the moment they had all materialized back beside the fire.  
  
"So you were just gonna keep catching hatchets with that ugly mug of yours?" Bill responds flatly.  
  
"Oh, fuck off now!" David raises a finger as if to jab Bill in the chest, but he's at least smart enough to not actually do it.  
  
It's an awful thing to watch, the way he gets so heated that Tapp eventually has to stand up and get between the two of them and tell David to "Sit the _fuck_ down before you do something you're really gonna regret!"  
  
Nobody's ever heard Tapp say the word _fuck_ before, which seems to be more than enough to subdue David. The detective puts a hand on the younger man's shoulder and gives him a firm push towards one of the logs.  
  
David snorts — really snorts, like a mad dog, or something — but he drops down and takes a seat next to Nea, face twisted into a scowl. Nea not-so-subtly slides a few inches towards the end of the log, her expression reading, _I'm the first one outta here when he loses it._  
  
Bill does not look fazed or intimidated. With a rigid correction of the slant of his cap, he nods to Tapp and says, "You know damned well he wouldn't try anything. Hothead bastard. He'll say 'sorry' later."  
  
David makes like he doesn't hear the old veteran, staring into the fire with a sour look on his face.  
  
Although the situation has been diffused, the tension remains, because no one has addressed the real issue: the anomalies that have been happening during trials are making everybody more anxious and tense than usual— and that's _saying_ something, Feng Min thinks, considering the amount of stress they're already accustomed to operating under.  
  
Jake tells them that he's seen some unusual things happen before, here and there, but only rarely during his long stay in the nightmare. He describes missing totems and trial realms that wouldn't appear fully formed and sickly-smelling flowers bursting out of the ground and growing like a virus all over the nightmare before withering away again as if they had never been there. He says he doesn't know how they happen, or why. None of them do.  
  
Nea seems to think she knows, though, by the way she keeps looking at her. Like she's waiting for Feng Min to raise her hand and say something. But she just keeps her mouth shut and avoids eye contact and makes excuses when Nea keeps trying to confront her and get her alone again to talk.  
  
The survivors try varying offerings, testing to see if they can change their luck by pleasing the Entity. They burn different combinations of flowers that Claudette ascribes symbolic meanings to and random, seemingly useless junk and kitsch they've all come across or dug up from around the nightmare: bundles of ribbons and lace, bottle caps, paper bags, packets of seeds. Old notebooks and handwritten invoices and handfuls of nails. Shards of mirror and stained glass and ceramic. None of them can sense what's working and what's not.  
  
Feng Min thinks that the Entity isn't looking for offerings this time. She doesn't want to point out to the others that the rules of the game had never been directly explained to any of them at any point, so they were always subject to change. She suspects that the other survivors will not appreciate her pragmatism, and she doubts that Nea would be able to keep her mouth shut after overhearing such a comment.  
  
She knows that she should have taken a cue from Baker a long time ago and begun taking notes on everything she's learned. About Herman, about the killers, about the nightmare, and about how it all goes together, or if it even does.  
  
_Herman..._ Why had he let her go during that trial? She still hasn't figured that out, and the more she thinks about it, the more upset and confused she feels. There is no way he hadn't noticed that there were only three of them. Is that why? Did it matter to him? To the Entity? He'd dropped her on the floor, violating the duty of their roles in the Entity's game.  
  
In doing so, Feng Min fears he may have called attention to them. To her.  
  
She thinks grimly to herself about how everything she's ever done always seems to come down to her most fundamental trait: selfishness. During her disastrous pro gaming career, it had never really mattered to Feng Min just how many people she had to kick down on her way up or what personal sacrifices she might have to make, as long as she reached the very top. Ambition had carried her onto the throne of the Shining Lion, but then her inability to cope with maintaining the perfection she strove for tipped her right into its jaws, and the lion had eaten her alive.  
  
But... what could the Entity do to her that could be any worse than what it's _already_ doing to her? She's died too many times to count by now. Hundreds. Thousands of times. She's been killed in ways she'd never imagined or considered or even heard of before. Had her head hacked off, her aorta severed, her throat cut, her guts devoured. Taken an axe to the back of the skull and felt her own body split in two under the shredding teeth of a chainsaw. Choked to death by the Nurse and beaten unconscious by the Wraith and stabbed right through the chest by the Shape and gotten her fingers hacked off by the Clown and... and had her brain activity flatlined by the electric-circuit touch of the Doctor.  
  
She persists in trying to find Léry's, even though the results continue to be unpromising. When reaching out into the static, trying to get it to reach back for her, Feng Min finds only a flat landscape of noise. Nothing to tether her mind to and follow. It's there, she thinks, but it's like it's on mute; there's no spot she can get a hand-hold on it. When she tries, it slips out of her brain before she can grab it, the signal lost in the dense black fog of the forest surrounding the campfire and crowding her head.  
  
Feng Min loses track of time. She barely keeps tabs on it to begin with, but it all seems to smudge together like daubs of paint, passing in a numb blur of sacrifice after sacrifice.

  
  


There doesn't _seem_ to be anything wrong with Autohaven, at least not when Feng Min first looks around and takes note of it, after the fog has swept herself, Jake, Ace, and Kate up. They all materialize in the same area, which, as Feng Min has come to learn, is usually more of a bad thing than a good thing. Some of the others see it as an opportunity to quickly collaborate on locating and starting a generator, but Feng Min knows better than that, slipping away before the killer heads over and has their pick of the lot of them.  
  
She breathes a sigh of relief when the first generator she repairs lights up just fine, and, hoping to ride her luck out, she goes to look for another.  
  
There's a sort of cabin-like structure in this part of the wrecking yard. There's a generator there sitting on what remains of what Feng Min guesses was once a porch. It leaves a fairly open sight line out towards the grounds, but Feng Min is usually quicker to spot the killer before they're able to spot her. Not that it helps, half the time. But they've already got two generators down, and she thinks that Kate and Ace have got the Wraith pretty busy over on the other end of the walled-in arena.  
  
Feng Min kneels next to the generator, rolling her tired wrists in preparation for the arduous and logic-defying task of powering it— connecting wires to sockets that lead nowhere. She's got a good start on it, setting the first and second of the pistons going, when her eyes slip away from the expansive view of the yard to stare briefly into the cabin.  
  
Something on the wall catches her attention. A series of black smudges right on the wood. She squints at it. What is it? At first, she thinks it's a letter of the alphabet, but then it sort of comes together in her mind. It looks like a crude stick figure. She wonders if Nea has been here recently with her charcoals, but she knows Nea's distinctive tagging style, and stick figures aren't a part of it.  
  
Something about it really bothers her, like she should understand what she's looking at.  
  
And then a bell tolls behind her.  
  
Feng Min doesn't even have time to start screaming before the Wraith has pulled her off of the generator, lifting her from the ground to throw her over his shoulder.  
  
"No!" she yells. As useless as it always is, the instinct to survive still remains. That one thing — desperation to survive, to live, to not _die_ — never fades. It's the strongest feeling Feng Min's ever known. Stronger than adrenaline. More than victory. The drive to live at any cost, no matter how hopeless, is always there inside of her. Even in this deathless place.  
  
As the Wraith carries her towards a hook close to the outer perimeter, Feng Min catches a glimpse of Jake, waiting covertly behind a pile of scrap. She doesn't try to signal him, lest the killer take notice. Had he seen the stupid, embarrassing mistake she'd just made, allowing herself to become so distracted that the Wraith had been able to walk right up to her and grab her?  
  
The hook ensures that she pays for that mistake. The Wraith drops her on it before immediately striking the bell, his visage folding back into nothingness. Just as he does, another generator sounds out, and he glides towards it. Feng Min quickly loses sight of the mirage among the piles of scrap and crushed cars. Through the greenish fog, she soon hears Ace shouting distantly.  
  
Ace meeting bad luck is never a good omen for any trial, she's come to find.  
  
Jake comes up around the back of the hook, and Feng Min doesn't hide her expression of relief when he reaches up for her, grunting as he plants his feet into the ground to lift her off. Her blood immediately begins dripping all over the front of his coat, but Jake doesn't even blink as he helps her get her footing again.  
  
Having a hole ripped through her shoulder is an injury Feng Min runs into more often than not in trials — even when she escapes, it's usually not without having spent some time on the hook — but tears of pain still jump to her eyes as if it were the first time again, just like always. She grinds her teeth together and jerks her head hard at Jake, motioning out towards the sky, where the Entity has switched its attention, presumably for Ace.  
  
"Yeah," breathes Jake, affirming what she doesn't need to say. He breaks off at a stilted run, and for the first time Feng Min notices that he's nursing his own injury; one of his pant legs is red all the way down past the knee, giving him the gait of a wounded deer.  
  
She staggers back over to the generator that the Wraith had disrupted her on. This time, she doesn't look inside the cabin. With shaking, blood-streaked hands, Feng Min manages to get the remaining two pistons going, and finally it comes online.  
  
"One left," Feng Min whispers to herself. "One left." Their team's not in the best shape, but everything's otherwise been proceeding as normal. No anomalies so far. Good.  
  
Her left arm, from shoulder to fingertip, has started to feel cold and leaden. She tries to roll it, seeing if she can provoke some sensation, but she knows that the more blood she loses, the worse her dexterity is going to become.  
  
The sound of an explosion rocks through the grounds, and golden sparks begin raining down through the trees. Feng Min flinches and shivers. Who had it been? Ace? She doesn't want to look up into the sky to see whose body it might be.  
  
It doesn't matter. It's happened before; it'll happen again. She's better off shutting down everything but her ability to focus. No distractions.  
  
Feng Min finds another generator that she tries her best to work on, but her left arm won't stop shaking, and she can't extend or flex her fingers very well. The machine backfires on her twice in a row, hurling oil and soot all over her clothes.  
  
She doesn't even have it halfway done when the Wraith finally catches up to Kate, who's been trying hard to keep him occupied. Feng Min clenches her teeth and resists the urge to scream in frustration. Although Jake makes an effort, the Entity comes quickly for Kate, perhaps in part due to the angry thrashing she had done on its hook.  
  
Feng Min reaches in for another wire. After the generator backfires for a third time, she's not surprised when she hears the Wraith's bell going off nearby. But with it is Jake's voice, too.  
  
"Get up!" he shouts. "Follow me!"  
  
Jake comes sprinting around the side of a rusting crane at least two stories high. The Wraith isn't far behind him, following with patient strides, as though walking barefoot in an environment where broken glass and rusty nails seem statistically likely doesn't bother him at all.  
  
Feng Min stands, and Jake grabs her by the arm as he whips past her, forcing her to run with him. She only understands the urgency when she sees what he's got in his right hand: a blackened old key.  
  
It's a fairly rare trick, tough to pull off— the survivors don't run into keys a whole lot while out scavenging, and whenever they've been fortunate enough to bring one into the trial, they'd often never get to use them.  
  
But Jake's running with purpose, like he knows exactly where the black lock is, so Feng Min follows him. It's difficult to keep up with him even though he's the one with the leg injury— she thinks she's lost a lot more blood than he has. When he directs them towards the dilapidated little shack in the corner of the yard, she finally spares a look back over her shoulder.  
  
He's just a few paces away. In swinging range in seconds, probably. Feng Min chokes on her terror. "Jake!" she cries desperately.  
  
They make it into the shack just in time. Jake throws himself on the floor to shove the key into the lock, and Feng Min flees through the entrance right as the Wraith tries to lands a hit on her. She musters her remaining strength and pivots on her left foot to use her good arm to pull down the pallet.  
  
The Wraith goes staggering back, snarling, and raises the club again. Feng Min looks at it, and in that second, she sees something. And it clicks.  
  
_Oh_ , she thinks, staring at the yellowing skull. At the little stick figure stamped in blood on the cranium. That's where she'd seen it before.  
  
Behind her, there's a creaking sound, and the darkness begins to sing, providing a way out.  
  
"Come on!" Jake urges her, and just as the Wraith shreds through the pallet, he jumps to his feet and throws both of his arms around Feng Min's body. Pain flares in her shoulder as Jake hugs her tight to his chest and then lets them both tip backwards into the open mouth of the hatch. They free-fall into the blackness as the Wraith's roars fade away above them, and then it swallows them up completely.  
  
It's still no escape.

  
  


Her head clears. The pain does not.  
  
The campfire is there, as it always is after a trial, the molten gold of its light never changing hue.  
  
Feng Min looks down at herself. She sees blood all over her shirt and her jacket. Blood coming from her shoulder. From the arm that hangs dead at her side. _Still._  
  
"Oh," she says faintly.  
  
Her knees buckle, sending her crashing to the ground, and she hears a gasp. Meg, maybe? She ends up slumped over on her injured side. Her shoulder is still bleeding freely from the gash torn right through the back to the front, even though she and Jake had left the trial successfully through the hatch. She's supposed to be healed. That's how it works. That's how it _always_ works.  
  
"Feng Min!" Laurie cries, having appeared kneeling next to her at some point in the last few seconds, quickly followed by Adam, who reaches down to feel around her neck for her pulse. His large fingers pin a spot right below her jaw, and through one cracked eyelid she sees him checking his watch. Feng Min is too lightheaded to tell him that she's not dead yet.  
  
"What? What happened?" Dwight's voice has gone up a few octaves in concern as he hurries over, looking between Laurie and Adam and Feng Min. "Oh, Christ!" He stops short in an almost cartoonish matter, feet shuffling in place uncertainly before he squares his shoulders again. "Is Claudette around?" He directs this last part across the campfire to the rest of the group.  
  
For the first time, Feng Min notices that Jake's also in rough shape. Meg and Kate are looking him over by an adjacent log, where he sits with his head tucked between his knees. His clothes are still stained with blood. Kate is trying to persuade him to show the two of them his wound, but Jake keeps shaking his head _no._  
  
"How did this happen?" Dwight asks urgently as he makes some space for Claudette, who's coming over with a first-aid kit open and ready.  
  
"Don't... know," Feng Min mumbles with great effort, her voice rattling in her throat through shudders of pain. She tries to twist her head to look at Dwight, but the action takes more strength than she's able to expend. "Escaped. But..."  
  
Adam and Laurie have got her sort of braced between them, working to ease her over onto her other side so that the both of them and Claudette can assess the damage. She can feel them trying to clean the wound out and pack it, and it should hurt like fucking hell, but all she's starting to feel now is sleepy.  
  
"Hey, no!" says Laurie, sitting up taller and raising her voice. "You can't fall asleep! Not right now. I'm sorry. Just a little longer." Feng Min feels Laurie's hands on her face, gently shaking her awake. She opens her eyes and stares up at her again. The firelight bouncing off of her wan face is blinding.  
  
"We need to elevate her a little." Claudette, from somewhere on her right side.  
  
At that point, Feng Min stops paying attention to the conversation happening above and around her. The others manage to get her into a reclining position, and she accepts it when Laurie holds a cup out to help her drink some water, tipping her head back and swallowing with some difficulty. She starts to feel less lightheaded, and is amazed that she didn't bleed out. As she curls up onto her side and tries to sleep, she catches parts of conversations among the other survivors that indicate that they're confused, too:  
  
"...you ever seen it before?"  
  
"I'm starting to think that..."  
  
"This isn't supposed to happen."  
  
It takes Feng Min a moment to place the voice on that last one. Jake. That makes her open her eyes again. She sees him by his log with his leg all wrapped up, looking around the campfire. His gaze lands on her own.  
  
It lingers.  
  
Feng Min is too tired to think about what Jake is trying to tell her with that serious, silent look, but it stays with her as she falls asleep.

  
  


Feng Min wakes some hours later from a restless and featureless sleep. Her left arm and shoulder feel like they're on fire. The entire limb is so stiff that she can barely move it, and attempting to do so makes her gasp out in pain. This quickly and unpleasantly shunts her towards full consciousness, her eyes snapping open.  
  
As Feng Min takes in her surroundings and counts out who's present at the campfire, it hits her that her experience at the last trial had been _real_ : she and Jake had escaped a trial, but they had come back from it injured. She presses her right hand to her left shoulder just to confirm the reality of it again, but just touching it lightly makes it hurt even more.  
  
The way that the Entity feeds on their wounds and then heals them anew is the most basic part of their cycle of existence, as far as Feng Min knows. She'd always thought it was _necessary_ ; if the sacrifices were about causing pain and death, why keep the prey injured and impact the hunt? Better to hit _reset_ and start a new game, she figures.  
  
Just not this time.  
  
"I've got to talk with you."  
  
Jake's there kneeling next to her. The first thing that Feng Min takes in is that he's still got a bandage wrapped around his leg, from thigh to knee, and it's stained in deepening shades of rust. She feels a violent lurch in her gut.  
  
"What about?" Feng Min sits up as best as she can, trying not to look like she's in pain as her shoulder responds to the movement with what feels like a knife straight into her chest.  
  
Jake looks her over. His thick brows are set low, his dark eyes staring, unfocused, somewhere around his lap. "It's just a few questions."  
  
Feng Min glances down, too, to see what he's looking at. Her heart just about stops when she sees what's on his lap: her backpack. Open. And some familiar cassette tapes, visible right inside of it.  
  
She hadn't done anything about the interview tapes after she and Quentin had listened to them together in Springwood. She'd thought about throwing them away, or destroying them, but she ended up tossing the six little cassettes into her backpack, reluctant to decide what she should do with them. They'd been sitting unnoticed at the bottom ever since. Innocuous little things with unremarkable labels. Nobody would look twice.  
  
Feng Min still can't forget the screams she heard on them.  
  
The alarm on her face must be apparent, because Jake asks, "What's going on?"  
  
He's staring right at her now. It's hard to tell what kind of expression he's giving her, because it betrays nothing at all.  
  
Why had he looked through her backpack? When? How much had he figured out? Had he found a way to listen to them?  
  
_He noticed something,_ thinks Feng Min in shock, _the last time we were at the Institute. When there were just three of us. When Herman dropped me in the basement._  
  
"I..." she starts, her voice numb and unguarded.  
  
"Some weird things have been happening during trials," says Jake, reaching down to pick up one of the tapes. He holds it between his gloved fingertips and turns it over to display the little label. _#76-0093._ "And I've noticed that they've mostly been happening when _you're_ around."  
  
Feng Min realizes, then, that Tapp is right there, too, standing nearby observing the two of them. He looks troubled. And standing behind him is...  
  
"Quentin," she says.  
  
He's there with his shoulders slumped, looking sorrier than she's ever seen him look, his red-rimmed eyes creased in regret. "I really didn't say anything," he says to her, his voice strained. "I _didn't,_ Feng Min. I'm sorry."  
  
She barely hears him, because panic is beginning to grow inside of her. Feng Min takes a full look around the campfire, finally, and sees that it's actually _everyone_ that's watching her conversation with Jake. At least everyone that's there. She sees Claudette, Ace, Kate, David... and Nea, standing much further back than the others, over by the tree line, her expression disturbed.  
  
_Fuck_ , thinks Feng Min.  
  
Jake slides the backpack off of his lap, as though inviting her to take it. With her right arm only, Feng Min shakily reaches out to feel inside for the tapes. Six of them, still. She's trying to think of what to say when Jake asks, "What would be on those? If we checked them?"  
  
Feng Min needs a moment to turn that over in her head. _He doesn't know what's on them,_ she realizes. And Quentin doesn't know much more than that.  
  
"Look, Feng Min, nobody's angry," continues Jake. His eyes are flicking over her face, like he's trying to determine her thoughts. Although he keeps his voice low, it seems like everyone around the campfire can hear him quite clearly. "But you've got to be straight with us. If you did something, or saw something—"  
  
"What if it's just bad luck?" comes a voice who Feng Min has to search around for to identify. Meg. "I mean... if you've been here a long time, you know, you'll see some weird stuff eventually..." She trails off, her cheeks flaring brightly.  
  
_They don't know._ Not the specifics. The odds that she might be able to talk her way out of this one are improving slightly. Feng Min's desperation has got her in strategist mode, seeking a way out so that she doesn't have to explain. She's not nearly ready. Not now.  
  
"Quentin knows there's something going on, but he wouldn't tell me what." Jake stares down at the tapes, then looks up at Tapp and around at the others before he turns back to her. "And I... respect that. I'm trying to respect that. So... I'm asking you directly."  
  
Feeling Jake's intense gaze upon her, as well as the others' scrutinizing stares, Feng Min starts to feel like she's been placed beneath a spotlight again. A camera shoved in her face and one focused on her hands, broadcasting her performance live to millions, all of them expecting her to put on her best performance yet. Each and every time. Just one more win. One more. One more. One more.   
  
She thinks she can hear her own heartbeat, the way she might hear a killer's.  
  
"Are you accusing me of something?" she asks as unemotionally as she can manage. She holds Jake's gaze as she casually slips her hand back into the bag and feels around again. There's not much else inside, beyond the tapes. She feels the crunchy, dry texture of preserved flowers. The cool, smooth faces of a few coins. Some random knick-knacks she'd picked up around realms she intended to try as offerings, things like ticket stubs and laundry tags and assorted little tools. Junk, really.  
  
And the gear sphere, sitting heavily at the bottom. Feng Min regrets that her interesting little holiday present is going to have to go with the rest of it. She wants to apologize to Meg. But she's only got one chance.  
  
"No," says Jake.  
  
Behind him, Tapp steps forward, and says, in what Feng Min is sure is one of his most professional tones, "In here, everyone's actions matter. That's the one thing I've learned from being in this place. That's what we've all learned." He looks over his shoulder at the others. Quentin's pacing by the fire nearby, hands in his pockets, head low. Ace is trying to look disinterested, clearly uneasy with the tense tone around the campfire and itching to crack a joke to offer some levity. Claudette's sitting with her head in her hands, like she wishes she weren't there and having to listen to it at all.  
  
Feng Min can't see Nea by the tree line any more. She's not sure when she must have slipped away.  
  
"Some things that we do here can affect all of us," says Tapp. He crouches next to her and Jake, offering Feng Min a paternal smile. It's got genuine warmth behind it. Warmth and weariness. "So, for everyone's sake... We just want to know if there's something you need to share with us."  
  
Tapp sounds kind about it. Jake still has yet to look angry, too. Nobody really does. They're all too emotionally exhausted to feel that way, Feng Min thinks. She knows what that's like. The other survivors are shades of disappointed, tired, trusting, hurt. But not angry.  
  
She's fortunate for them, really. She owes them the truth. A great measure of it.  
  
But then she knows what will happen if she tells them what she has been doing between trials. They'll look at her like she's lost her mind. Like she's betrayed them all. They'll never see her the same way again. If they don't immediately cast her out, they'll ostracize her, because they won't be able to forget that she had gone and broken the rules and chosen to keep breaking them even after she'd found her 'answer.'  
  
And then, isolated from the other survivors, completely alone...  
  
What would happen to her then?  
  
Feng Min thinks about the pain in her left arm as she draws the backpack closed by the pull cord. She's glad the injury isn't on her right side, otherwise she's not sure she'd be able to pull off what she's about to do.  
  
She gets a good grip on the backpack by the strap, and shifts onto her knees. Jake eyes her warily as she gets up.  
  
"Feng Min," comes a firm voice. Quentin. He's moved closer, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. His bone-white face is pleading with her. "Maybe... maybe it's _time,_ you know what I mean? It might just be time to..."  
  
"No," she mumbles. The backpack hangs loosely from her right hand.  
  
Quentin is the only one who seems to get what she's going to do before she actually does it. He reacts fast, launching forward and clawing at her arm while shouting, "Wait, _don't—_ " but it's already too late.  
  
Feng Min swings the bag back with her right arm and then hurls it directly into the fire, where it lands with an explosion of sparks and flying embers. The fire snarls and accepts the offering, quickly engulfing the backpack in a blaze of light, wafting the scent of burning plastic and cotton. Kate yelps and falls against Ace in her attempt to get away from the massive spill of hot ashes at the toes of her cowboy boots.  
  
"What did you do?" asks Jake, breathless beside her. His voice hasn't lifted above its usual low tone; she's never heard him raise his voice in emotion before, and now is no different. But something tells her that, right now, controlling it is a lot harder for him than usual.  
  
Feng Min barely hears him. She just stares into the roaring fire. She knows what's happening to her right now. It's a panic attack. She's not unfamiliar with them. They'd been almost daily after the game that ended her career in 2016. But it's been a long, long time since she'd had one that felt like this.  
  
Hugging her deadened arm to her chest, seeing all of her fellow survivors staring at her in shock, all Feng Min can really think is, _I have to get out of here_ , the thought so desperate that it feels like a matter of life and death. So she turns away from the others and their questions and their unheard truths and the burning tapes.  
  
Although Quentin attempts to maintain his grip on her, she manages to wrench herself free, propelled by sheer animal instinct. He makes an effort to try to grab at her again, but is caught off-balance as Jake stumbles into him while attempting to grab her.   
  
She flees in the ensuing confusion and runs straight into the forest. There's an opening into the trees, not far away, and although her shoulder might be injured, there's nothing wrong with her legs, and they carry her straight through the brush. She's already past the tree line by the time the rest of the survivors properly react.  
  
"Feng Min!" someone calls after her. Claudette...?  
  
"Come back!" Tapp. Even more distant-sounding.  
  
The trees close in quickly behind her. The dark mist of the forest always behaves as though it has been waiting for her. If the other survivors are smart, she thinks, they won't come after her. The fog has already taken her along its path; there would be no guarantee it would take the rest of them with it, too.  
  
Once the sounds of the campfire have completely disappeared, after running for a good three minutes through the unchanging mass of trees, the adrenaline finally wears off, and Feng Min slows to a sudden stop, panting. Her chest hurts— not just from the sprinting. The effort of trying to ignore the pain in her arm is just too much along with the chaos now in her mind, and she finally lets out a shuddering sob that turns into an effort to blink away tears.  
  
What had she just done? When confronted with the opportunity to tell the truth, she'd destroyed the evidence and run. Like a coward. She'll need to return to the others eventually. She _has_ to. But...  
  
Feng Min feels, abruptly, dizzy. She reaches out towards a tree, placing her hand on its slim trunk to keep herself upright, and looks down at her shoulder to examine it in the moonlight. Although the bandages have stayed in place, they're not enough any more. There's a freshly growing bloodstain coming through the cotton.  
  
The fact that her wound has begun bleeding again is what tips her fully over the edge, and Feng Min stops trying to hold away the tears, choking out another loud sob. There is no responding echo. If she bleeds out now, she wonders, what will happen to her? Will the Entity just return her to the campfire, the way it usually might?  
  
Why can't she trust that it _will_ this time?  
  
Is it all just a coincidence? Or is she being tested?  
  
Feng Min doesn't know how much longer she can keep wandering. As she walks, each step steadily more difficult and heavy, she becomes less aware of her surroundings. She keeps forcing herself onward anyway; something's telling her to keep going.  
  
She's not sure if she imagines it when the trees begin to part. If the sky is a certain color, she wouldn't know it; everything's started to look the same shade of grey. She feels sad and afraid and tired and more lost than she has ever been.  
  
With blood streaming out from beneath the bandage all down the front of her shirt, Feng Min's legs finally give out on her, and she drops to the ground.  
  
The last thing she feels is a snowflake landing on her eyelid.

  
  


The whispers are still down there in the dark. The pain keeps her floating above them, near the surface of consciousness, her toes skimming the depths. They're content to stay down there for now, satisfied with merely reminding her that they are there and will be waiting for her return.

  
  


The fluorescent lights are hurting her eyes. Feng Min closes them again just as soon as she's opened them.  
  
Her body is sore. It's not just her left arm and shoulder now; it's spread out to her entire back and down her legs and into her other arm. She gurgles out something like a whimper, unable to help it. Even her throat hurts. Feng Min takes a minute to collect herself before she gingerly rolls over onto her right side on the mattress—  
  
Wait... mattress?  
  
She looks up. A blue curtain hangs in front of her. Stunned, Feng Min lurches forward, reaching out to snatch it aside.  
  
No one else is here with her, but it's unmistakable: she's in one of the patient rooms at Léry's Memorial Institute.  
  
The sense of relief she feels — real, genuine _relief_ — at being in the hospital is not exactly reassuring. But she's here. Again, after so long. It feels like forever since she'd last had a conversation with Herman. A _real_ conversation.  
  
Had he found her? Brought her up here?  
  
Feng Min eases her legs over the side of the bed and stretches her right arm to manually extend her left. She sees that her wound had been re-wrapped at some point. She examines it under the buzzing lights and notes that there's no blood leaking through, which seems like tentatively good news to her.  
  
It takes her a few minutes to tie her sneakers with only one useful hand, and while she does that, she tries to tune her mind to the static, seeing if she can sense the Doctor's presence. She can't feel anything unusual among it— it's just a broad sheet of noise. Soon, she gets to her feet and heads into the hallway, intent upon finding him.  
  
As she walks down the hallways, the colors around her seem to shift from sharper to duller, and the scattered monitors swell with noise. She's still slightly faint from the blood loss, and her head hurts a little. After walking down two hallways and sensing no sign of the Doctor, she pauses for a break by a window. When she idly looks into it, she notices something strange: it's raining outside.  
  
She's never seen anything but snow around Léry's before. Feng Min stands before the open window and stares out into the rain. She extends a hand out and feels it splashing onto her palm. It's real enough— at least as much as the snow was. The rain's soft droning blends seamlessly with the static inside the Institute's abandoned halls.  
  
Feeling uneasy, Feng Min moves away from the window, and, eventually, her feet carry her to the treatment theater. The televisions mounted there in some dystopian vision of voyeurism are playing back the usual sounds— the distorted screams, the glitching laughter. Even now, with no sign of a generator in sight. Disturbed, Feng Min climbs up to the observation deck, and she heads over to the control panel. She begins pulling switches with her good arm, listening and watching as various lights shut off in the treatment theater, one by one.  
  
Feng Min reaches for a small silver switch. This one shuts the monitors off. She allows herself a little sigh of relief.  
  
[  You're awake.  ]  
  
She gasps as the sudden voice in her head draws her eyes immediately to its source: the Doctor, standing right on the platform below the deck, looking up at her plaintively.  
  
"Yes," she whispers, and then she abruptly feels very dizzy, her knees threatening to drop her right where she's standing. "It's _you._ "  
  
Although she'd been trying and trying to return to the Institute, Feng Min realizes that she hadn't really thought about what she would do or even feel once she actually did.  
  
The Doctor has his long black coat on, and without the light of the screens to help, he's lit up only from below the grate, which causes him to cast an enormous shadow on the opposing wall. His face leers at her in its familiar and menacing way, one eye bulging wildly like a laser sight in the darkness, the other stapled shut. The punishment stick hangs from his side, holstered there on his belt and inert.  
  
Herman tilts his head at her, as though questioning her stunned silence.  
  
[  It isn't a good idea for you to be up and moving around,  ] he says, and then he slips out of her sight. Feng Min leans into the control panel, trying to watch for his movements. The electricity comes rippling across the platform floor towards her shoes as she picks up the sound of his footsteps on the stairs.  
  
Herman emerges on the upper deck and approaches her to help her upright, and it takes putting her hand against his rough forearm for Feng Min to accept that he is not a hallucination.  
  
It feels like it's been a long time. Feng Min's time in the Entity's realm has been marked by gaps and leaps and pauses, stretches of time that seem to either extend for eternities or pass by in a single breath. Maybe she'd last encountered him in that trial yesterday. Maybe it was three months ago. But words like those — _days, months, years_ — don't mean anything here.  
  
Feng Min leans into his side, even after she's gotten her bearings. Herman stands there and lets her, but he drops his arm. [  You should resume your rest. You're not in the best condition. But that begs the question...  ] He moves back to stare at her face, but then his twitching eyeball flicks to her shoulder, and he lifts a finger to point at it. [  Is this wound not from a sacrificial hook?  ]  
  
She looks down at it, too. Of course he'd recognize it. She guesses Herman has probably performed hundreds or thousands or maybe millions of sacrifices for the Entity.  
  
"Yeah," she says, reaching up with her right hand to cover the bandaged wound. "I... I came back injured from the last trial. The Wraith got me on a hook, and we left through the hatch, but... I was still like this." The torn muscle and flesh throbs, and she realizes belatedly that she's sweating from the effort of coping with the pain. "I don't know why." She moves her hand and sees that a dark wet stain has begun to bloom again through the cotton, and she covers it again before he notices.  
  
[  Interesting.  ] Feng Min can practically hear the maybe-literal gears turning in his head.  
  
"But that's not why I'm here." She pauses. She doesn't _really_ know why she's here. It was terror that had driven her into the forest. A reaction of pure fear. She'd felt _afraid_ of the other survivors, of the threat of everything falling apart— so afraid that she'd run away from it like she'd fled from the fallout of every other mistake she'd ever made in her life.  
  
Something tells her that she still has many more mistakes to make yet.  
  
Herman steps away from her to turn towards the control panel. He flips the switch that powers the monitors back on, but this time, they blare nothing but static. He stares out at them, like there's something there to see. [  I _did_ find you at the front doors.  ]  
  
The last thing Feng Min remembers is passing out just as she realized that she'd actually managed to find Léry's Memorial Institute while wandering the fog, panic-stricken and bleeding out. "I guess I lucked out with the cameras," she says.  
  
[  Cameras? No.  ] Herman looks over his shoulder down at her. [  I heard you call for me.  ]  
  
Surprised, Feng Min's mouth drops slightly, before she utters a belated, "What?"  
  
[  Do you think that I wouldn't notice your presence?  ] He turns a key in the center of the control panel, causing the lights to flicker on all across it, and then drops it into his pocket before facing back towards her. [  Call it a disturbance in the Force.  ]  
  
It takes a moment for her brain to place the reference, and once she recognizes it, she begins laughing, startled. "Wait. _Star Wars?_ " The deep breath she has to take after ends up sending a sharp pain throughout her shoulder and arm, and she sucks back a gasp, managing to keep her smile from turning into a wince. "You really are just a geek, aren't you?"  
  
[  My. It's been a long time since I've been called that,  ] says Herman, laughing as his voice, lilting with amusement, leaks into her head.  
  
"I mean, it takes one to know one." Feng Min carefully kneads her palm against her shoulder, trying to quell the pain. "Remember that I once made a living playing video games."  
  
[  Yes,  ] notes the Doctor. [  That skill of yours that you threw away.  ]  
  
That kills her mood immediately. Her face falls. "It's too late to cry over it."  
  
[  Is it?  ] he responds, but the question seems to be rhetorical, because he just continues talking. [  Tell me why you came here, if it wasn't for my help.  ]  
  
"I..." Feng Min trails off. "I mean, I guess it was." She looks down at her shoes. "For your help. I don't know. I wasn't... I wasn't really _trying_ to find y— the hospital. But mostly, I... I'm upset with you," she says, too tired to stop herself from just outright saying it. "There are so many questions I..." She clenches her hands into fists at her sides and stares up at him.  
  
[  I know.  ]  
  
When he doesn't continue or offer any insight, her troubled thoughts land on one question. "Why did you let me _go_ last time? You... you can't do that. It's not what we agreed on. And it's not..."  
  
[  You would be surprised at what I can and 'can't' do.  ] There it is again— that familiarly condescending tone. Feng Min had actually missed hearing it. He wheezes as he continues, [  Haven't you noticed something odd lately?  ]  
  
This last question seems like a pivot, and she has to really think about it, wary of what he means, wary of telling him what she suspects. But...  
  
Feng Min stares at the Doctor and wonders if he'd chosen to read her mind while she was passed out. It wouldn't have been difficult for him to mine her memories in her sleep. Does he know how close she'd just come to the other survivors learning about her covert meetings with him— one of the killers?  
  
Feng Min takes a shuddering breath. "Yeah. There were three of us in that trial. And... with the Wraith, and my shoulder... I just have a feeling that these things that are happening are my fault."  
  
Maybe it's all connected: herself, Herman, the unusual things that have happened in trials lately. Saying it out loud — _my fault_ — makes it seem so much more obvious. She's been doing something that a survivor just _isn't_ supposed to do. She'd come to this unbelievable and strange agreement with one of the Entity's servants, and she'd kept pushing it for far longer than she ever should have.  
  
Feng Min knows that she can't expect the other survivors to accept her story. She knows that they won't understand what she knows: that the Doctor has his own force of will and that it seems — she thinks — more and more that it does not align with the Entity's. But nothing she can say will persuade the others of that. Not when she's spent so much time in secret, hiding things from them all. Not when Herman isn't even capable of speaking to them for himself.  
  
[  Obviously,  ] says the Doctor himself, disrupting her thoughts, and that's not the answer she'd expected at all. He doesn't seem to be very concerned by it, either.  
  
"Isn't that a bad thing?" she asks him, her voice weary as she tries to carefully stretch out her aching left arm.  
  
When his laughter pierces into the air — not in her head but in her ears — Feng Min jumps at how sudden it is in the otherwise silent treatment theater. It winds forward then backwards, _hahaha_ then _ahahah_ , sounding like it's gotten stuck on a loop. The sound sends a chill down her spine, and she bristles, shaking her head hard.  
  
"Please. Just. Don't make this into another riddle. I'm... I'm _sick_ of them. I want you to just be honest with me." It's a pretty hypocritical thing to ask for, with the way she'd run away from Jake and the others' questions, just hours ago. But how can she ever reply to them if she doesn't get the answers from Herman first?  
  
The laughter stops. When his voice slips back into her brain, it is not mollified, but it _is_ dead calm. [  Your wound,  ] he points out, having noticed the fresh blood seeping through the bandages. [  It needs attending to.  ]  
  
"Yeah," she mutters. "Don't change the subject."  
  
[  Come,  ] says Herman, offering her his arm once more. Feng Min wants to say, _my legs work just fine,_ but, truth be told, she feels like shit all over, so she hooks her good arm into the crook of his elbow and leans into him as he helps her down the stairs of the observation deck. As they reach the bottom, he says, [  Maybe you'd like to use one of those?  ]  
  
There is a wheelchair that appears to have been abandoned in the middle of the hallway. It's got a dark stain on the back of the seat. Feng Min looks at it and then shakes her head _no._  
  
[  You'll walk?  ] He tilts his head at her.  
  
The blood flowing from her shoulder has begun to streak down her arm inside of her shirt. It's a gross, sticky feeling, and it's making her lightheaded again. She looks at his open palms turned towards her, and asks, with a slightly self-conscious duck of her head, "Can you just carry me? It's not like it's hard for you."  
  
Herman laughs again, but it's not his usual frenetic rattle. [  Fine.  ] He has to really lean over — almost kneel — to get low enough to scoop an arm under her knees. She half-expects him to toss her over his shoulder the way the killers typically do, but he just pulls her against his chest. Feng Min is reminded of what it had felt like to pick up and hold her cat as she slides her good arm around his neck to stabilize herself.  
  
She's still not fully familiar with how to navigate the halls of the Institute — usually, she just wanders, waiting to find something, the way the survivors do out in the fog — but Herman proceeds with purpose. Each of his long strides sends an unpleasant shock of pain through her shoulder, which she tries to ignore along with the literal shocks numbing her fingers where they're pressed up behind his neck.  
  
In the ensuing silence, Feng Min's thoughts return to the things that have been weighing her heart and mind down. She knows that she can't leave the Institute without getting some major answers this time, because she doesn't know when she'll have a chance to return.  
  
"When I told you that I thought these weird things happening in trials were my fault, you said it was obvious. Why?"  
  
It takes a moment, and Feng Min thinks he's not going to answer at first, but then he does, his tone shifting thoughtful beneath the buzzing layer of static in her brain. [  The Entity may be its own sort of god, but it is not perfect. Nothing is. I'm sure you've noticed the way it changes constantly. How its landscape cannot be fully charted.  ]  
  
Although she tries, Feng Min can't follow his train of thought. "What do you mean? What does that have to do with me not being healed after a trial?"  
  
Herman delays his answer again, mouth twitching around his stutter-stop breathing.  
  
[  I don't think I can explain it to you properly if I don't tell you about my research first,  ] he says finally.  
  
His research. _Oh._ Feng Min still doesn't know much about it. She knows that the CIA had been supporting his research. Funding it, probably. The sheer size of the Institute, a complex that she now understands to be a government facility, makes her think they had resources to spare. But that's about the extent of what she knows— the _how_ and _why_ of his research are still unknowns to her.  
  
"Do you _want_ to tell me about your research?" Feng Min looks up at him, into his glowing red eye casting burning highlights on her face. "I mean, isn't it top-secret CIA stuff?"  
  
[  I strongly doubt that the non-disclosure agreement I signed remains valid here,  ] says Herman, and then he laughs at his own joke. [  'Top-secret CIA stuff' or not.  ] A pause. [  Also, anyone who would care is now dead.  ]  
  
Feng Min nibbles at her lip so that she doesn't have to wonder whether or not he's still joking, but, mostly, she just feels anxious and confused about everything, and faint from the pain in her shoulder. "Well, okay. But do you actually want to tell me about it?"  
  
Herman's tone turns disdainful; at least, that's what Feng Min thinks it sounds like, but his words are phrased in a disappointed manner. [  Really, Feng Min? Do you believe that I'm just humoring you, at this point? How boring that would be for me. I am trying to teach you things. Things no survivor ought to have any right to know. You wouldn't still be here in my territory, otherwise. Pay attention. ]  
  
As soon as he says it, she feels ridiculous for not realizing it sooner. After he'd told her to leave him alone, he'd still acquiesced when she'd pushed it. He'd gone out of his way to find her out in the fog. He'd shown her the dead zones, the barrier. He's been trying to _teach_ her things. Things beyond their initial agreement. It's a startling thought, and difficult to wrap her head around.  
  
It's so opposed to everything she knows about the Entity's killers— even everything she knows about Herman.  
  
"Why?" she asks, even though she has a feeling she's already supposed to know. She's staring at the knot on his tie, right below the place where the cannula disappears past his collar.  
  
The static floods in to fill the silence that follows her question. It parts only when Herman chooses to speak again.  
  
[  You told me that you felt you had to be at the Institute. With me. But you did not know why yet.  ] His twitching eye is staring straight ahead.  
  
"Yeah," Feng Min murmurs. "I said you knew it, too."  
  
[  There is your answer,  ] he says simply.  
  
The fact that Herman has laid his cards on the table without any hesitation or excuse — for _once_ — renders Feng Min speechless.  
  
"Oh," she breathes, and then she falls silent, but she has to curl her right hand into a fist so that it doesn't tremble. She'd _known_ it, in her heart, just like she'd known about the static's very precise sense of purpose— the way it always seemed to guide her back here, to the Institute, to Herman. She'd known that he must have felt it, too. Even when he said otherwise. She'd made the choice to trust him, despite it.  
  
Feng Min presses her cheek to Herman's shoulder. She hopes she's not imagining it when his grip tightens subtly on her in return.  
  
As he walks her back towards the recovery ward she'd woken up in, she recalls the other survivors' reactions to the tapes in her backpack. The mistrust and wariness in their eyes, and how afraid it had made her feel. Now, Feng Min realizes the _real_ reason it had made her feel so afraid, why it had made her panic and bolt away even in a badly injured state, the others screaming after her: subconsciously, she'd wanted to protect what she had with Herman. What she _has_ with Herman.  
  
The sudden awareness of this fact — all the things it could mean, most of which she doesn't even want to think about — makes Feng Min feel sick.  
  
[  Here.  ]  
  
Herman speaks again out of nowhere, his demeanor having not changed at all over the past few minutes. He directs her towards the bed she'd been sleeping on before, leaning down to help her onto the beaten-up mattress.  
  
Feng Min shifts around to get comfortable. As she lets go of the Doctor, a little spark zaps her left arm, but she barely feels it, given how much it hurts already. She tries to stretch it out again, but she can't get it to fully extend any more. She's starting to feel, with no small amount of regret, that she'll probably be better off just dying than trying to heal this particular injury.  
  
Herman's opening a cabinet below a series of backlit x-ray images. Feng Min watches him for a bit, and then she tries to pick the conversation back up. "What do I need to know about your research?"  
  
The Doctor goes, _hmmnn,_ out loud, from his throat, and then continues in her head: [  I'll answer your questions so that you can draw your own conclusions. Is that fair?  ]  
  
"Fine," says Feng Min, ready to agree to almost any condition to finally get some straight answers. "Then just start from the beginning."  
  
[  This place... Léry's Memorial Institute. You already know that it was a clandestine black site of the Central Intelligence Agency.  ] Herman doesn't wait for her confirmation before continuing. [  When I was recruited, I was younger than you. At that point in my life, I had been struggling.  ] Herman pauses. [  I saw it as the only chance I might have to gain access to the resources I needed to pursue my research. Curing diseases was the only thing I sought to do with my knowledge. It was what I was promised.  ]  
  
"Right," says Feng Min softly, carefully carding through the foreign memories she still has echoing in her head. She remembers a life hard-lived, opportunities few and hard-won. Hope and ambition and naïvety.  
  
[  It didn't take long for me to learn the true nature of the work at the Institute. I had my reservations. But... when you are told that what you are doing is for the good of the country... for the good of your fellow man...  ] Herman turns towards her. [  I thought electrostimulation could be used therapeutically. I thought it could render prisoners suggestible. My mentor wanted more, and told me to think bigger.  ]  
  
He's pulled a roll of bandages out from the cabinet, as well as a white bottle which Feng Min guesses must be antiseptic. She takes this as a cue, and she reaches to very carefully begin peeling the bloodsoaked wrapping off of her shoulder. Each little tug hurts. "Your mentor... Otto Stamper, right?" she asks as she works the loose end of the bandage over and under her armpit.  
  
Herman watches her as he continues. [  He was a brilliant old bastard. Not half as intelligent as me, mind you, but he'd earned his rank. Absolutely no sense of humor. Took everything far too seriously for my tastes. But he never denied any of my research proposals. And he held the checkbook.  ] There's an amused sort of lilt in the Doctor's voice, like he's recalling a fond memory.  
  
"It sounds like he was using you."  
  
[  He certainly _thought_ he was.  ] There's an satisfied edge to that statement. [  Electroconvulsive therapy was not complex or interesting to me. Not at first. It is simple to induce pain with it. Anyone could do it.  ] He hums somewhere in his chest, rocking back on his heels. [  I was adept at achieving satisfying results. As an interrogative tool, pain is fairly persuasive. But it's hardly accurate. You can never guarantee that it will solicit the truth.  ]  
  
Herman is standing cross-armed in front of the bed, watching as the bandages puddle into a red-soaked pile on Feng Min's lap. She's trying hard not to do too much visualizing of everything he's describing, struggling to reconcile the monstrous man standing in front of her with the human life he had lived. "Because people can still lie even under duress, right?"  
  
[  Yes. I could put my subjects through an incredible amount of pain, but it wasn't enough— not for interrogations, and not for my research. So I began experimenting with voltage. With direct and indirect contact. With low and high stimulus. When you are dealing with the human brain, the smallest change can... _break_ it. But I did not want to just break my patients. A broken brain will not yield information. I wasn't certain what sort of result I was looking for until I actually found it.  ]  
  
Feng Min pulls the last of the bandages free. Her shirt is crusted in blood all around the shoulder, armpit, and chest, and it hurts just as bad as it looks. "Fuck," she mutters as she looks at it, amazed that the blood loss hadn't killed her out in the forest.  
  
Herman pauses his story as he leans over her to stare at the injury. [  We'll need to clean it,  ] he says.  
  
Feng Min looks at him, and then down at the wound. He's right. The blood's so dark on her white-and-red shirt that it almost looks black. But, with a laborious effort to shrug her shoulders, she points out, "I can't just get my arm out of my shirt. I can barely move it."  
  
The Doctor turns towards the tray table next to the bed and picks up a pair of scissors, and he reaches towards her with them immediately, making her yelp and inch back.  
  
"Wait!" she blurts. "What are you—"  
  
[  Let's get your arm out of your shirt,  ] Herman says, looking at her like he can't believe she'd moved away from a pair of scissors going right towards her face.  
  
"But I like this shirt," says Feng Min, alarmed, looking down at the colorful little coffee cup design.  
  
[  Oh. Pardon me. I didn't realize how important fashion was in this living hell.  ]  
  
Feng Min glares up at him. "You show up at _trials_ in a _suit vest._ "  
  
Herman begins laughing. [  Ah. You've got me there.  ]  
  
She lets herself relax enough to smile a little, too, the corners of her mouth twitching up. "Um, I mean..." Sighing, she looks down again at her irreparably bloodstained shirt. "Do you have anything else I can wear?"  
  
[  If you don't mind the inmate uniform,  ] he says. He takes her question as permission and reaches out to cut a slit down the shoulder of her shirt, halfway to the elbow. Once he does that, Feng Min reaches up to peel the fabric away from the wound to expose it, hissing as it rips free of barely-dried scabs. Blood begins welling freshly at the ragged entry site, right below her collarbone and above her armpit. Feng Min turns her face away from having to look at it.  
  
As Herman soaks a length of cotton in the alcohol, Feng Min asks, keen on distracting herself from what she is certain will be an extremely painful process, "What was the result you found? Through your research?"  
  
The Doctor hums in assent. [  Eventually, I found that I could push my patients beyond the threshold of ordinary pain. There would come a point where they would stop their protesting and their screaming. Transcending pain allowed for a state of extreme suggestibility.  ] He reaches towards her with the cloth, and Feng Min props her arm up on the bed rail so that she doesn't flinch so hard at what's coming. [  As I continued to develop my theories, I began to think that I needed to _feel_ it to understand it. I had to know what my patients felt to understand exactly what it meant to render the human mind vulnerable.  ]  
  
Herman presses the wet cloth to the wound, and Feng Min jolts, a whimper bursting heavy out of her chest, making her lose her breath. It stings so bad that he might as well have thrown a handful of table salt into the wound. She rocks in place, squeezing her eyes shut. "Give me a minute," she says, counting out the seconds as the initial lash of pain begins to fade slightly.  
  
[  If it hurts, you should express it,  ] says Herman. [  I _do_ enjoy the sound of your screaming.  ]  
  
Feng Min stares up at him from under her bangs, scowling. "Every time I start to think that you must not be all that weird, you say something to remind me that you totally are." She steadies her breath; the pain is still there, but it's mostly mitigated. "You experimented on _yourself?_ "  
  
He nods as he uses the cloth to soak up the blood; the white fabric quickly begins blooming into pinks. [  A fool's decision. I wanted to learn what my patients were feeling. But, instead, I began to hear noise. ]  
  
"Noise?"  
  
[  I recognize it now as the whispers.  ]  
  
Herman doesn't need to explain that one. Noise. Whispers. The _Entity_. The thing she can hear every time she closes her eyes. Now, several of the things Feng Min has gleaned from Herman's memories are starting to make sense.  
  
[  I noticed something strange immediately. I thought that I had done irreparable damage to my brain, and... in a way, I suppose I had.  ] Herman pulls back to rinse the cloth with more alcohol. Feng Min's wound is stinging in the open air; it's taking a lot of patience not to reach up to pick or rub at it. [  But when I could hear the whispers...  ]  
  
She waits for him to continue.  
  
[  When I heard the whispers, I could receive insights about those around me. It was not much, at first. I became attuned to when someone would be resistant, and when they would not. The whispers allowed me an empathic knowledge of my patients, and I used that to perfect my techniques. I felt that I had uncovered the key to unleashing latent psychic potential in humans. That I could awaken the human brain to a higher consciousness. And so Project Awakening took form.  ]  
  
It's the first time Feng Min has heard that name, but it's what Herman says about the whispers that disturbs her most— the way he's talking about it so casually, as though cross-dimensional contact with a death god was simply something to be expected in his line of work.  
  
Herman nudges her, and Feng Min turns her body slightly on the bed so that he can get to the entry wound at the back of her shoulder. The pain starts anew, making her breaths hitch. She feels his hands go still, and he doesn't resume cleaning until her breathing steadies.  
  
[  The human brain has incredible potential, Feng Min. It's a beautifully evolved structure. Complex and miraculous. There's still so much we don't know about it. But... there are some truths that cannot and should not be understood. I never considered that the whispers had their own intentions. When I realized that I was being spoken to — directed — my mind had already become as vulnerable as my patients'. ] Herman's fingertips are warm against her wound, even through the cloth. [  By the time I felt I had found the answer, my fate had already been decided.  ]  
  
Feng Min closes her eyes and takes deep breaths through the pain as he cleans the wound out. His touch is surprisingly gentle, and she wonders what he might have been like as a _real_ doctor if the CIA hadn't intervened in the path of his life. If he could have cured diseases the way he'd wanted to.  
  
Herman has gone silent, making her realize that he's come to the conclusion of what he'd wanted to say for now.  
  
She considers his memories within their contexts now. The whispers. The experiments. More than once, he'd told her that he had welcomed the Entity's voice, but Feng Min is beginning to wonder: just how much responsibility does Herman bear, if it had been speaking to him so directly? She's come to realize that, in choosing to trust him, she must accept that Herman is — in some way — a prisoner (no, a _victim_ ) of the Entity, exactly the same as her. This frightening truth is difficult to manage against the very real fears that come with it— about the other survivors, about the Entity, about the anomalies that have been happening around her.  
  
But although it might be frightening, Feng Min knows that she can't conceive of _not_ trusting him, at this point. The feelings that she has developed for Herman Carter are more than human. They're personal. The thought is drenched in despair, and it makes her want to reel more violently than the pain.  
  
With the disinfecting finally done — Feng Min looks into the cart and sees that a great amount of reddish-pink water has pooled in the tray — Herman begins to pack the wound with gauze. By now the alcohol and discomfort have numbed the area enough that she barely feels it.  
  
"Herman?" she says softly. "How did the Institute come to be destroyed?"  
  
Behind her, he uses a pair of tweezers to place and tamp down the gauze. [  I felt that I could finally prove my theory. It told me what I had to do to reach the culmination of my life's purpose, and I did it. I was compelled to.  ]  
  
This seemingly unrelated anecdote seems to be all that he is willing to supply. Feng Min just nods.  
  
[  The Entity has punished me in many ways. It has taken much of my memories. It has limited my abilities. It has remade my flesh. But none of these are its worst punishment.  ]  
  
Feng Min looks up over her shoulder at him. Herman looks back at her, all bared teeth and glittering light. Not long ago, she'd asked him what he was being punished for, and he'd laughed it off.  
  
[  Its worst punishment was the gift of clarity. It allowed me finally to see myself as I really was. All of the years I had lost. The stranger I used to be. The thing I had become.  ] Herman reaches for the bandages and begins to re-wrap the wound. [  It was enough to drive a man mad all over again. And sometimes...  ] He trails off. [  Sometimes, I think about it and have to laugh.  ]  
  
He doesn't.  
  
Feng Min turns towards him. Her shoulder has started to feel slightly better. The sterile smell of alcohol is at least a lot more pleasant than the smell of blood. "What did you learn about it? The Entity?"  
  
[  In my former life? Only in retrospect can I make sense of what I learned. I know now that it is reliant on human memory and emotion. And that it will change and adapt in response to it.  ] Herman secures the bandage over her shoulder with a carefully placed pin. [  It's what it has been doing to you.  ]  
  
"I... oh," says Feng Min, absorbing that. "I... I thought that... You let me _go_ , that one time, and before that you showed me more of the nightmare... so I've been afraid that we... that I've been _angering_ it. The Entity."  
  
[  That's possible.  ] Herman stands, crossing the room to dispose of the bloodstained bandages in a sink.  
  
"You don't sound very worried about it."  
  
[  Because I'm not.  ] Herman doesn't offer anything else, helpful or not.  
  
Feng Min thinks again about what he'd said about drawing her own conclusions. About the nightmare being reliant on memory and emotion. She thinks, also, of the campfire, and of the last thing she'd seen: the cassette tapes tumbling into the flames.  
  
"So... then that isn't enough to really anger the Entity. It's just... sort of reacting, to me. To you." Feng Min looks up into Herman's face to be sure that she's going in the right direction, and when he doesn't interrupt, she continues, "But then... _can_ the Entity be influenced? On purpose?"  
  
He's immediately pleased, judging by the way his brow jumps up, and he sounds it, too. [  Yes,  ] he says. He's come back over to her bedside, and he's dragging a chair with him across the floor, which he sets down and sits in. He puts his arms on the bed rail and leans in, staring at her intensely. Just staring. As if waiting.  
  
Feng Min feels that what she says next will be important.  
  
"And that's..." she trails off, her voice lilting in wonder. "That's what you've been studying here in the nightmare, isn't it? Your 'other research.' That's what you're studying."  
  
Herman makes a satisfied sound in the back of his throat. [  Yes,  ] he says again, seemingly enjoying watching the dominoes fall in her head.  
  
And fall they do. Feng Min is feeling a tentatively renewed sense of meaning. Something else to focus on. Something else to drive towards.  
  
Impulsively, she reaches out with her good hand and grabs for Herman's where it rests on the bed rail. He lets her take it. "You want out of the nightmare, don't you? That's what the research is for."  
  
[  Of course,  ] says Herman, and his bared teeth have never looked more like a smile. [  You've been a dutiful student, after all.  ]  
  
Speechless, she just sits there, staring at him. Out of the nightmare. _Out of the nightmare._ Is it possible? _Can_ it be possible? If anyone could do it, she thinks, it has to be Dr. Herman Carter, one of the most brilliant minds she has ever encountered.  
  
"Let me help you," she says finally.  
  
[  That's the idea,  ] Herman says, so startlingly gently that it makes a knot form in her throat. She squeezes his hand, and they sit there for a few seconds, staring at each other, before Feng Min turns away, overwhelmed.  
  
She has a million questions about everything— about what it all means and the details of what he's been studying and how she could help him with it and whether or not they even could. But it's also a lot to think about, and she doesn't think she's in a state to approach it yet. He's right; she _does_ need to rest.  
  
Feng Min finds herself looking down at his hands again. The glowing red tendons. The little wires intersecting under the rough, patchwork skin. She turns his hand over and spreads his fingers out to examine his palm. There are no wires there, but nothing else beneath the rough texture, either. She can't even make out his lifeline.  
  
"You could have been a healer," she says.  
  
A little glow begins to form between Herman's splayed fingers, but when the lashes of electricity come up against her own hand, they only cause a faint numb feeling on her skin. [  These hands will never heal,  ] he says to her, his open eye fixed on her face.  
  
"They just did," she murmurs. The contact with his warm skin is making the pain in her shoulder more bearable— it's numbing out the muscles up her left arm, making them slacken. She notices, too, then, that the static around her — in her head, in the room, among the hospital grounds, coming straight from him — moves over and around her like a blanket. "You always feel so warm."  
  
[  That's what happens when your heart functions as a generator.  ]  
  
Feng Min stares at his broad chest. Beneath the black coat, Herman is wearing a button-up shirt and tie like he usually does. She reaches out, unable to resist the impulse, to press her palm left of center on his chest, and notes immediately how warm he is right there, over his heart. _A generator_ , she thinks, wondering if perhaps he meant it literally. She can feel the heat radiating out of him in waves, and, even more curiously beneath it— a deep, bone-vibrating humming from the center of his body, detectable even through his coat and shirt.  
  
In the darkness, she makes out the dullest hint of a glow through the fabric. A dull, shimmering swath of luminescence she might have mistaken for the static, if he'd put her into one of his madness states. She stares at it to make sure that she's not just seeing things.  
  
"I... I want to see it." She jerks her chin up, looking at him. "Underneath."  
  
Hearing nothing in her head, and seeing no twitch or change on his frozen face, Feng Min reaches for his tie. Once — it feels like a long time ago, even if it wasn't at all — she'd had to get heavily intoxicated just to force herself to touch another person. Now, she's stone cold sober and terrified, hardly believing what she's doing, but Herman does nothing to stop her as she tugs the tie loose with her right hand.  
  
[  Feng Min...  ] he begins, and his voice sounds both distorted and distant in her head.  
  
"Please," she whispers.  
  
Even with her sitting up on the bed, Herman is still taller in his chair. When she doesn't stop trying to pull the tie free, he reaches to grab her by the wrist. [  Think clearly about what you are doing,  ] he warns. It is not a threatening warning. She thinks she senses a real thread of concern in it.  
  
Feng Min flexes her fingers and tries to wiggle her wrist out of his grasp. There's a sense of shame in her. A deep shame, broaching wild, existential panic. But there's also a sense of exhilarating relief that comes with the guilt. Catharsis at caving to complex feeling inside of her that she still doesn't know how — is too _scared_ — to name.  
  
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in years," she says in a quivering voice, and somehow it's the complete truth even as she's not certain of herself at all.  
  
Herman just tilts his head towards her, shuddering out several heaving, agonized breaths. She studies his face, trying to read into his gaze. Into the smallest flicker of muscle. Something in him seems to collapse. And then he says, [  You wouldn't lie to me, would you?  ]  
  
"No."  
  
His hands are moving— she hears a click, then a thud, and sees that he's lowered the bed rail so he can lean in towards her more. Not wasting a moment, she pulls the tie loose. The silk pools in a little pile on the dusty white sheets.  
  
Herman gets up from the chair and sinks down onto the treatment bed next to her. It groans beneath the added weight, and she wonders if the frame can actually handle it, but once it stops creaking, the bed goes still again. Feng Min shifts forward on her knees, until she's right up against his side, and he turns towards her as she reaches for the buttons on his shirt. It's easier to perform this particular task with just one hand, but her shaky fingers stretch the action out into an agonizing, tense awkwardness.  
  
But then an astonishing thing is exposed when she gets his shirt to fall open. There are the wires and cables she'd expected to see, diving in and out of the surface of his skin like serpents, trailing down from the throat to the collarbones and over the sternum. But even more surprising and unearthly a sight is the glow emanating from his chest. It's like there's a furnace in the center of his body, or maybe a star, burning so bright it glows even through his ribcage. The color shifts below the surface of his skin like a swimming pool lit in the dark, sepulchral red to purple to blue. The thick wires implanted over the area, knotted in scar tissue, quiver with light.  
  
Feng Min presses her hand against Herman's side, right below his ribs. His skin is smooth and unmarked there, touched by neither the wires nor the electricity. When she spreads her fingers apart, the glow in his chest flickers like a candle, and when she pulls her hand away, a spark jumps off of his skin as if trying to follow her. It stings, but doesn't hurt. With a nervous hum of laughter, she keeps her gaze lowered as her fingers drift towards the strange glow she can't tear her eyes away from.  
  
His skin is very hot just left of the breastbone, enough that she snatches her fingertips away just as soon as she touches him, startled. Herman is eyeing her reactions, his hands resting idly on his lap. There is something restrained in his manner that Feng Min's trying not to feel intimidated by.  
  
"What is it?" she asks, carefully flattening her palm over the center of the glow. It feels like touching a warm stove.  
  
Herman looks down at her hand on his chest. [  I have a heart, if that is what you were wondering. It generates voltage.  ]  
  
Feng Min closes her eyes. Her hand is starting to feel numb and heavy where it's pressed over his chest, but, soon, beneath the thrumming and twitching she feels inside of him, she feels something else— a steady thudding. A pulsing. It makes her hold her breath, just feeling it for a few beats.  
  
She drops her hand, not knowing what emotion has just gripped her.  
  
[  You look troubled.  ] He moves as if to put a stop to things again, but Feng Min shakes her head quickly.  
  
"No. I... I just wondered." She reaches out for his arm, and although he gives her a wary twitch of his brow, he doesn't stop her when she moves closer. "If you had one." She slips a knee over his thighs, and when he seems to tolerate that, Feng Min shifts to set her weight into his lap. "And now I know."  
  
The glow in his chest now lights her shirt up, in its ragged and bloodied condition. The newly applied bandages seem to be holding just fine, still unstained and white over the wound, but there's dried blood and dirt and god-knows-what stuck to her skin all around the area. It's this that makes her feel more uncertain of herself than the actual idea of just taking her clothes off.  
  
But Herman doesn't really seem to be paying attention to that; his broad hands eventually move to settle on her hips before, in a smooth motion, sliding right beneath the back of her shirt. She feels his textured fingertips pressing into the little spaces between the ridges of her spine, roaming up from her tailbone to the middle of her back and then higher, up between her shoulder blades. He drags her shirt up with his touch, and Feng Min manages to wrest her right arm free so that he can help her slide it down her left arm.  
  
Herman grabs the garment and lets it slip off the side of the treatment bed. There's a considerable amount of blood still visible smeared all down her left side, a sickly orangey color in the artificial lighting. His sweeping eye takes in the sight of her. She'd worn no bra — she'd never worn one much in the real world, managing just fine considering her small bust, and there was even less reason to put on another uncomfortable layer now that she was in the world of the Entity — and so she is now fully exposed from the waist up. But she keeps her hands right where they are, against his stomach, and lets him stare. Now's no time to feel spooked by his gaze, is it?  
  
Nothing comes from his mouth or into her head, but Herman's hands are still moving, slipping from around her waist to glide up her sides. There's a sort of stinging feeling his adept fingers are carrying as they move over her skin, and when he assertively brushes one over her right nipple, Feng Min feels a distinct jolt that immediately causes goosebumps to flare all down her stomach and arms. She squeaks.  
  
[  That shouldn't have hurt.  ] Herman laughs, fingers going still. His hand is broad enough that she thinks he could cover her entire chest with it.  
  
"It didn't. I was just... surprised." She tries not to look as overwhelmed as she feels, and ventures a little smirk. "Show me what else you can do."  
  
[  Oh?  ] Herman's rapidfire laughter reverberates. [  Are you sure about that?  ] He takes her by the waist and then rolls her onto her back, laying her flat so suddenly it makes the room spin for a moment. When his shadow moves over her, she extends her good arm up towards him. He obliges, letting her loop it around his neck and hug him close as he settles over her. She lets her thighs come apart, and he leans into her, his hips coming flush with hers.  
  
The pressure this creates on her crotch makes her want to squirm back against him; she can roughly feel the shape of him even through their clothing. He pins her pelvis down with his weight, and she gets to feel him, half-hard, pressing right into her. She can already tell that he's big, just like the rest of him, but she hasn't really tried visualizing just _how_ big, before.  
  
Herman's hands are back on her body, massaging up her stomach and over her breasts, his touch avoiding the wound. His hands leave the sensation of pins and needles in their wake, and she's not sure if the warmth she feels all over is because of the large amount of blood she's lost recently or genuine arousal or confusion or the continuous waves of static, a tide neverending. But he feels _good,_ pressing up between her legs, and for a moment she perfectly recalls just why she had spent so much time trying to run away from her problems by commodifying her body.  
  
This isn't the same as that. This could have consequences far beyond personal ones only.  
  
But this dangerous thing she is doing — dangerous in so many ways — is eclipsed by the lonely chasm in her chest, as dark as his is bright. His solid form above her, his delayed breaths in her ear, his rough palms numbing the spots they move over. She's wanted this, even if she hadn't known it would be in this form. She's longed to feel certain of _something_ , even just briefly.  
  
And she _wants_ him. She's been longing for him for longer than she'd realized, this strange not-quite-man, not-quite-monster. Coming to know him has been the only thing that's given her any real sense of purpose in this hell. Whenever she'd felt compelled to return to the hospital, to the static, it had only ever meant returning to him. Wanting to be near him, where the constant noise in her head could be both at its loudest and most silent.  
  
Feng Min presses her forehead into Herman's shoulder and wraps her thighs around his hips, trying to pull him in closer. He lets her, but his hands are moving down from her breasts to her bare stomach to the hem of her shorts. She closes her eyes and inhales his strange metallic scent as his fingers work the button and zipper apart. She raises her pelvis to help work them off; Herman just slides his fingers under the waistband and yanks them down. He sits up only long enough to let her kick them away.  
  
Herman slides a hand between her legs and runs his thumb down the seam line of her tights, right over her pubic mound, causing her to groan. He breathes out a sort of half-laugh and pushes his finger inside a rip on her thigh. Feng Min hears the nylon splitting as he tears a hole through to the crotch. He doesn't spend much time contemplating her underwear, instead just hooking his fingers into the gusset and tugging it aside. His fingers make contact with her vulva almost immediately, stroking lightly over her with the same numbing sensation.  
  
Feng Min vocalizes sharply the moment his fingertips locate her flushed clit. She keeps anticipating pain — some kind of intense shock in a very sensitive area — but it hasn't happened yet. The numbness is strange, but it doesn't hurt. Still, her heart is only accelerating.  
  
"What— what is that?" she manages to say as Herman massages her clit, making her hips twitch. The more his abrasive fingertips rub against her, the warmer they feel, and the pins and needles sensation intensifies.  
  
His fingers go still. He stops and eases up a little. [  Are you alright?  ]  
  
It's a strange thing for him to ask. At least it feels that way. It's unnatural, at least, because asking things like _are you alright?_ has never been on the task list for killers. Feng Min wonders why he's asking her. And then she wonders why she's wondering.  
  
"Yeah," she whispers, and although he's only getting her steadily more aroused, there's a sudden, intense feeling of self-hatred that overwhelms her. The selfishness of what she's doing — what she's done, what she's about to do, all the mistakes she knows she has yet to make — is undeniable. So is the self-loathing that comes with it.  
  
Herman is staring down at her, into her face. As though reading her thoughts, he says, [  Let's stop.  ]  
  
Feng Min shakes her head. _No._ It feels too late to stop. But that's just another excuse; it's that she doesn't _want_ to stop.  
  
"It's okay," she says softly, trying an encouraging little smile up at him. "I swear."  
  
His expressionless mask of horror appears to scrutinize her for a beat longer, but when she reaches down to guide his hand back down between her thighs, he goes along with it. She shudders when his fingers press back against her, tightening her arm around his neck while he works his index finger into her, the cracked texture only making the prickling numbness that much stranger as it spreads out into the nerves inside of her.  
  
"That's... that's good, like that," Feng Min groans when he begins moving it in and out of her slowly, inciting a series of rippling shivers throughout her whole body. He inserts another finger soon after the first, surprising her with how thick they feel inside of her. When she turns her head up to look at him, she can see the electricity both flaring and fading at the crown of his head.  
  
[  Your body is so tense.  ] Herman tilts his wrist and pushes his fingers in at an upward angle, making her hips jump and sending a ripple through her inner muscles that makes her clench against him. The numb feeling is spreading not just through her hips but into her gut, too. It gives her a strange, floating feeling. His fingers begin to move easier inside of her, slipping wetly out to glide back in as he continues, [  There you go... Relax...  ]  
  
Feng Min nods as though it were a hypnotic suggestion, pawing at his chest as she grinds back against his hand. The longer his fingers are inside of her, the more intense the bizarre numbing sensation gets. It's not that she can't feel what he's doing; she can feel him and _more_ , but there's also this strange sense of being removed from her own body.  
  
"H-hey," she starts, clawing at the back of his neck, her mouth lolling open. "I— _ah—_ " She forgets what she'd wanted to say when Herman presses his fingers in right up to the knuckle and she feels the heat literally intensify inside of her. She taps him on the back of the left shoulder until he's looking at her again, sideways, brow lifted inquisitively.  
  
[  I see that you're particularly sensitive...  ] His voice is languid. Cocky, even. It's pillowed in the static in her head.  
  
"Shut up," Feng Min groans, feeling her face grow hot. She can feel the bulge in his pants, not even half-hard, digging into her thigh, and she wants to get her hands on him already. Herman's still teasing her with his finger when she reaches down to his belt to make her point. He retracts his hand, dragging wet onto her leg, to help her.  
  
He pulls open the belt and loosens it so that Feng Min can reach for the zipper on his slacks, and once she's tugged that down, she slips her hand into his pants to get a feel for him. She presses her palm inwards, feeling out the shape of his cock, heavy and hot even through his briefs. She swallows dryly and turns her gaze downward so that she doesn't have to meet his gaze as he pulls his pants down at her urging.  
  
It's too dim to really be able to see what she's doing, so she feels around mostly blindly. When he frees his cock from his underwear and she wraps her hand around him, she notices something strange almost immediately. He's as big as she'd expected, which both excites and freaks her out, but it's not that. Even soft, she can make out some strange texture along the length of it. Feng Min clasps her hand around the tip carefully and squeezes, trying to visualize what she's touching.  
  
There are something like ridges on his cock. She can feel them, mostly lengthwise and on the underside and certainly no part of any human anatomy she knows. She cautiously runs her fingers down them, and, when she feels a responding tingle, realizes what they are.  
  
"Wires...?"  
  
[  They're everywhere on my body,  ] Herman says, his voice altogether far too composed for a man whose dick she's got in her hand. Although, Feng Min supposes, his voice only exists in her head, so she listens instead for the _real_ cues— the tempo of his breathing and the vocalizations he's still able to produce from his throat.  
  
"What happens if I put my mouth on it...?" she wonders aloud, feeling a little bolder as she reaches for the head of his cock. She dares a little glance back up at his face.  
  
He shudders, head tipping from one side and then to the other. [  Now there's an experiment...  ]  
  
Feng Min's curled fingers slide his foreskin back to expose the glans. She reaches for the smooth tip and immediately discovers a wire that seems to slip right through it, up through the head and underneath. When her thumb presses over it, he lets loosens another shudder, and she's reminded of the sounds she's heard him make in trials when running into obstacles.  
  
"Was that a good thing?" she asks, curious. The pad of her thumb feels like she's just pressed it to a piece of ice for a minute, cold and numbed-out. It doesn't stop her from doing it again, stroking the wire that emerges from the slit and feeling the prickling sensation redouble. She wishes she could get both of her hands on him instead of just the one, because the compulsion to keep touching and exploring his strange, not-quite-human body is strong.  
  
He just nods, head drifting, and Feng Min gets a tighter grip on him and begins stroking. He feels enormous in her hand, certainly bigger than any of the partners she'd been with before. When he pushes his hips forward, she feels his cock bob up against her stomach, growing harder. She notices for the first time that the glow coming from the wires running in and out of his body has brightened.  
  
"Let's..." Feng Min stops, not knowing how to say what she wants. She lets go of him and reaches for the waistband on her tights. He seems to get the message, sitting up slightly to slip her tights and underwear off the rest of the way, stripping them down her legs with confident hands and tossing them off the side of the bed. This leaves her totally nude, apart from the bandages, which still seem to be doing their job; she hasn't started bleeding again, at least.  
  
Herman's gaze lingers on her. It's impossible to tell where exactly he is looking.  
  
Feng Min looks up at that single solitary eye, glowing red in the dark.  
  
[  You won't be able to take this back,  ] he says. Warning her. She shivers.  
  
"I know," she says, her voice low. Then, louder: "I know."  
  
Gazing at him, Feng Min begins to really see and understand how the wires in his body all come together. He's truly a sight to behold; she doesn't understand how the man she's looking at could possibly be alive, at least not in the same way she is. She looks at the way the cables transition from his throat to his collarbone, down into his arms and into his chest, all of it integrated, a closed circuit in flesh. She can see it working before her eyes, sparks leaping from one pathway to another, through muscle and blood and copper. It's mesmerizing, moving with the same gentle tempo of the static.  
  
[  What are you looking at? ]  
  
"You."  
  
Herman climbs above her, and Feng Min thinks his shadow alone could be enough to keep her pinned down. He steadies himself between her spread thighs, his hands moving to grip her by the hips. Each of his fingertips has the strange sensation of an electrode once more, pressing gentle but firm into her skin. When the wires running down his arms hum, so do her muscles — a tightening in the sinew, a flutter of tendons.  
  
She's afraid. Not of pain. Not necessarily. Feng Min has become well-acquainted with pain. She thinks she's not really afraid of being shocked, either; she's been electrocuted before, and it's not like it could _kill_ her, even if it killed her.  
  
It's true that she can't take this back. That she'll never be able to strike any of this from memory, if she comes to regret it. But she'd been breaking the rules for him from the start. He'd broken the rules for her, too. It feels like this is one of the only lines they haven't crossed yet.  
  
Was this the point the static was trying to pull her towards? Was it inevitable? Is it her decision? His decision?  
  
Whose decisions?  
  
His hands sink craters in the mattress on either side of her head. Feng Min looks up at him. He rains sparks down on her face.  
  
Little flashes of light. So brief.  
  
[  Feng Min...  ] he starts.  
  
Impulsively, she reaches up and covers his eternally-silent mouth with her right hand. She feels his teeth against her palm. He doesn't jerk his head away. He just looks at her. His hands have slid up her thighs, stroking, making the muscles jump and tighten.  
  
"Don't," she whispers. "I'm fine."  
  
[  Then tell me what you want.  ] He squeezes her right below the hips. She feels his cock pressing heavily against her lower abdomen.  
  
Feng Min groans. "You can look into my mind," she says. "You know what I want." She tips her chin up, trying to clutch at his shoulder and tug him down towards her.  
  
Herman's hands flare hotly into her skin, gripping. [  No. Tell me.  ]  
  
"You," she says. "I want you. Right now."  
  
Herman finally relents at these words, slipping his hands up and underneath her body with a growl to gather her in his arms. Feng Min strokes her hand over his shoulder as he adjusts his position, letting his cock slide up between her labia until the underside of him is wet. She can feel the distinct shapes of the wires in him pressing into her, too, sending numb little sensations in spirals through the surface of her skin. He feels hot, especially against her swollen clit, and his ragged breaths — so unnerving-sounding — have taken on a new cadence as she ruts against him, locking her legs behind his back so that she can get some leverage on the friction. It's not long before she's craving more, not satisfied with just touching.  
  
" _Please—_ "  
  
He seems to understand, making a sound like, _mm_ , and then elaborating, in her head: [  Last chance to change your mind.  ] His voice sounds clearer than usual in her mind, unfettered by the crackling distortion that typically accompanies it. His singular open eye is luminous in the dark.  
  
"Why would I change my mind?" Feng Min asks softly. The bed creaks as she reaches up for him again, her fingers alighting carefully over the bandages wrapped all around his head, between the sharp implements sticking out of his skull. She feels a flush of electricity bubble up around her fingers, making them shake. "Are you going to hurt me?"  
  
Herman tilts his head into her hand and just stares at her. [  I don't intend to.  ]  
  
Feng Min recalls — not so long ago, or maybe years ago — a moment where he had subtly threatened her. When she hadn't really known him, not even a little bit, and certainly not enough to have been putting herself in such a vulnerable position with him, one of the Entity's executioners.  
  
_Do you think you could stop me, if that's what I decide I want from you?_  
  
It had scared her then. But not nearly as much as it should have.  
  
"Come here," she whispers, hooking her inner elbow around his neck and pulling him down, until his chest is pressed to hers. He seems to be cautious of placing his weight against her, but even though her shoulder still aches, she doesn't really mind the pressure. She's barely acknowledging the pain right now. "Let's just..."  
  
Feng Min trails off, struck suddenly by the surreal sight of him above her, light swimming beneath his skin. He's a wonder even here, in the ruins of this prison, in the dust and decay and dark. Even looking at him — at the wires that so impossibly invade his body, granting him an exoskeleton of light — she has never recognized him to be more obviously, painfully human than now. A little lucid part of her is still asking herself how she got here and why.  
  
"I don't know if you're going to fit," she says uneasily when she feels his cock bump up against her again, an awkward attempt at a joke at the most inappropriate time. She regrets it right away, but he laughs anyway, and the sound makes her relax, a little, instead of making her uncertain like it typically would.  
  
[  And yet you seem undeterred.  ] He gives her an intense look.  
  
She bites the inside of her bottom lip and nods.  
  
She's no virgin, not by a long shot, but nothing happens when he presses up against her at first. Just a lot of pressure. She'd already felt full with just two of his fingers; Feng Min is not exactly sure how this is going to work out for her. If Herman is feeling any doubt, he's still choosing not to just shove into her, and she appreciates that, even if she thinks it might actually be easier.  
  
She can feel the little ridge of the wire twisted down the underside of his glans rubbing up against her as he tries to take it slowly, and she tries not to let her discomfort show on her face as he aligns himself with her entrance and uses his hand to try to guide himself in. Feng Min reaches down to try to help and feels the numbing sensation against her fingers again.  
  
"Right... right here."  
  
With a shaky breath outwards, Feng Min tries to lessen the tension in her body and angles her hips so that the head of his cock slips inside of her. She anticipates pain, and of course it's there, sharp and sudden, making her face go pale and Herman pause above her. But then the frozen-fire feeling blooms inside of her the way it had with his fingers, creeping through her nerves, disrupting pathways of feeling.  
  
"Oh," she groans; the sound melts into a whimper when he holds her down with his hips to ease into her gradually. The numbness and the pressure move deeper into her body as he sinks into her. She can feel the strange texture of the wires running down the length of him; the numbness becomes clearer there.  
  
Herman tilts his head up to look at her, studying her face again. She can hear him breathing out through his teeth heavier than he typically might.  
  
"I'm alright," whispers Feng Min, answering the question in his eye. She reaches up with her sweaty hand to rub her thumb over his cheekbone, right beneath his closed eye, wanting to say something else, but not knowing what to say.  
  
He doesn't respond, but he does make a sound from his throat, something like, _oh,_ or maybe _ah_ , as he takes her hand in his left one and pins it down next to her head. Feng Min weaves her fingers into his and squeezes, and watches as light bursts from between his knuckles in brief little burning flashes on her fingers.  
  
Beneath the initial ache and the feeling of flattened nerves is something else— something hot and sharp. He begins moving slowly inside of her, just a couple of inches at a time, cock testing her shallowly to see if her body is relaxing. As the grey haze of static in her head thickens, so too does the pleasure, sudden and intense and throbbing beneath the numbness.  
  
"S-stop teasing me," she keens against his ear.  
  
Herman's hand tightens on hers as he obliges, pushing back into her hard enough to make the gurney pull away and then thud back into the wall. This causes a burst of pins and needles all throughout the lower half of Feng Min's body that spreads up her spine and seems to finally settle in her brain, crackling. She writhes beneath him, sucking back another whimper. He's a lot bigger than she is deep, and she thinks he's already reached her limit. Herman laughs above her, but he just keeps giving her what she wants, picking up the pace.  
  
Feng Min has to sit up to get some purchase on the worn old sheets, pushing herself up onto her right elbow. This gives her a view of the two of them, of her bruised and bloodied body and his marred and mutilated one above her. Her sweaty thighs around his hips. Him disappearing inside of her. How surreal; is any of this even happening to her?  
  
"Harder," she murmurs around the little breaths coming out of her mouth. "You can go harder."  
  
She doesn't need to ask him twice. [  Oh, with pleasure.  ] With a staticky sigh of approval that disrupts his uneven breathing, Herman grabs her by the hips and pulls her bodily to the edge of the bed, making her yelp in surprise. Adopting a standing position next to the gurney, Herman shifts his footing and pushes back into her. He's got the entire weight of the lower half of her body in his hands, holding her hips up off the edge of the bed.  
  
It feels like her core is melting, all of the nerves collapsing axon by axon, and Feng Min can only stare up at him and let it happen. The pain in her left shoulder and arm are still there — she thinks it actually might have started bleeding again, at some point when she was moving around on the bed with him; she can smell the blood — but it's all but lost in the expanse of conflicting sensations inside of her.  
  
At some point, she'd closed her eyes; she opens them when she feels Herman let go of her hips with one hand. He flattens it against her abdomen, his palm pressing right above her pubic bone.  
  
Feng Min blinks her blurry eyes and stutters, "What are—"  
  
She doesn't get to finish her question. There's a sudden flare of light that explodes between his knuckles, and then every muscle in the lower half of her body seems to seize at once. Feng Min yelps helplessly as she feels her cunt involuntarily tighten down onto him, sending a literal shock of intense pleasure through her guts. He's still thrusting into her even as her muscles draw together tight enough that they practically force him out, her heels kicking at his back.  
  
Herman groans low, apparently pleased. The inertia of the shock makes Feng Min start trembling. She can feel sweat prickling all over her body, and her hips twitch. He holds her steadily so that he can continue to fuck her, and it's already almost too much.  
  
"Oh, fuck," she whimpers, her good hand scrabbling at the sheets, hair plastered to her face. Feng Min had never really known what to do with herself when totally at someone else's mercy. She'd lived her whole life exercising such a freakish level of control over her own decisions and actions without ever regarding anyone else's input or opinion— so much so that even now, surrendering control to him so completely is a terrifying experience.  
  
[  Too much?  ] His voice is overwhelming in her head, taking up all of the room that the static isn't. He's laughing, the scowl looking more like a grin again in the harsh fluorescent light as he looks down at her. She notices for the first time that he's got a sheen of sweat on his body, as well, even on the twisted, rough patches of his skin where the Entity's corrupting touch had lingered longer.  
  
"No," she moans, too worked up to give him anything but the answer he clearly wants. "No, n-no— do it again."  
  
His thrusts begin to slow, and he laughs. It echoes and floats the static, making it sharpen and brighten in her mind. [  You've become rather demanding, haven't you?  ] But even as he says that, she can see the glow along his fingers brightening.  
  
When he shocks her again, it feels like her brain shorts out, a little— at least that's what seems to happen, because her vision goes all white, and her whole body goes tense, arching up from the mattress. Herman holds her fast so that she doesn't collapse back against it entirely as she convulses against him, little moans pouring incoherently from her mouth. She squirms, panting, and reaches to clutch at his forearm.  
  
Herman's hand is still balanced on her abdomen, primed for another shock. Her sensitivity has heightened so rapidly and so suddenly that even the light pressure of his fingertips on her stomach is making the little translucent hairs there stand on end. Feng Min wants to reach out and hold him, but she can't from her position.  
  
"Let... let me on top," she demands, her voice hanging needily in the air.  
  
[  If you say so.  ] Herman gives an approving groan of amusement as he lowers her hips and sits on the bed before pulling her into his lap with an arm around her waist.  
  
The muscles in Feng Min's legs already feel all tight and shaky and sore and numb above all, but she's barely thinking about it as she straddles him. She can feel herself dripping all down the insides of her thighs, aching for more stimulation. Herman grabs ahold of his cock to slide it back inside of her, the head nosing up against her ass before finding its mark. She sinks her weight onto him, shivering out a sigh as she feels him stretch her out, dragging the hard ridges of the wires inside of her.  
  
Herman's hands splay out over her ribs, his rough fingertips finding the spots in the grooves between, where her heartbeat seems to drum right against his fingers. She finds herself watching his expression as she rests her arms over his shoulders, slowly grinding her hips back and forth to get a feel for being on top of him.  
  
Feng Min feels a sudden, wild compulsion to kiss him, and, just as soon as she does, realizes that she can't. Although she has stopped finding his face frightening, his bared teeth and inert mouth mean that she'll never really be able to brush her lips against his.  
  
She's never liked kissing, historically. She'd avoid it as much as possible, even when she'd been at the height of her substance abuse, landing in a different bed every night. It had always seemed to be too intimate an act— one she could barely ever bring herself to do.  
  
Now, she finds herself wishing she could when she can't. It's the sort of irony she's become used to encountering in her life. But then she does so, anyway, settling for a compromise by leaning in and carefully pressing her lips to the spot right below his shut eye, one of the few patches of skin showing through the bandages. She kisses him there, and then lower, her mouth brushing over the cold metal contraption forcing his mouth open. She drops her lips lower, against his jaw, down to the spot beneath where it meets his neck.  
  
Herman shudders. He tips his head to the side and lets her do as she wishes, his hands dropping down to her rear and squeezing to pull her into his chest. He's begun thrusting up into her from below, bouncing her on his lap. Feng Min just indulgently lets him pick up the work as she puts her open mouth against his neck, wanting to feel and taste more of him. Her tongue goes numb and tingly right away, his skin scalding beneath it. It feels like licking a battery, she realizes, recalling the one time she had done it as a child on a dare.  
  
Soon, Feng Min can't differentiate between the static and the pleasure, or between his breaths and the sound of the circuit crackling, or his heartbeats or her own in her ears. It all becomes the same feeling, eventually, and as it builds, she becomes afraid of how intense it is becoming.  
  
"I— I can't," she squeaks when she feels an abrupt, involuntary clench of muscles again, "I can't, I—"  
  
[  Yes, you can,  ] he says, and he thrusts up into her particularly hard, making her whine sweetly. She nods, dazed, and chokes.  
  
How long ago had she been at the campfire? Or in a trial? How long ago had she come here, to the hospital? Even recent memories suddenly seem like they're very far away, being dragged off and out by the static.  
  
When she whimpers, " _Herman_ ," right against his neck, she doesn't even know she's said it. His name comes out of her mouth and is lost quickly in the flickering light streaking through her mind and body as he pounds into her from below. She buries her face in the slope of his shoulder and just lets it subsume her, her breaths going ragged and pitchy with pleasure.  
  
Herman's gone mostly silent aside from his wheezing breaths and broken groans, but she knows when he's reached his limit, because an intense, sharp jolt lances through her whole body. Even the light dancing over his body, streaking down his arms and legs and stomach, seems to intensify— so bright it threatens to blind her.  
  
"Come on," she pants, rocking against him eagerly, her thick tongue feeling swollen in her mouth. "It's okay— you can—"  
  
There's another shock that rips the words right out of her mouth, making her see stars as Herman drags her hips down and holds her there on his cock. She can feel it jumping and twitching, every powerful pulse of it. She chokes back a cry and squirms against him as he fully expends himself inside of her.  
  
When she feels the tension leave him all at once, Feng Min crumples against his body and presses her face to his chest, burning hot against her cheek. She feels Herman wrap his arms around her waist. He doesn't say anything; he just holds her and breathes unevenly through his mouth, sparks raining off of him and down her back.  
  
They sit like that for what feels like a long time, but it's just a couple of minutes as Feng Min recovers her breath and her mind. She's reluctant to move, but eventually she has to upon realizing that she can't feel most of the lower half of her body. Her muscles and nerves are still humming and numbed out. It feels strange when she lifts her hips and crawls off of him, like half of her body isn't really there. When his cum begins leaking out of her, she can barely feel it. She just stares at it splattering her thighs and the bedsheets and thinks, _That just happened._  
  
Feng Min rolls over onto her side, exhausted in every single way— physically, mentally, emotionally. She feels slightly shell-shocked as she lays there, looking over at him. Herman is staring back, expressionless as ever.  
  
What she wants now is silence. But there is no true silence around the static. Around him. In her head.  
  
Tears suddenly fill her eyes, and Feng Min isn't sure why. She doesn't feel sad. But she doesn't feel happy, either. She reaches to rub them away and tries to ignore the ache in her chest before looking at him again. "Can you just... lie with me here?" she murmurs.  
  
[  Yes,  ] says Herman with no further remark on her tears, and he carefully lowers himself, somewhat awkwardly managing to sort of lie down on his side. The gurney is certainly not made for someone of his size, but he fits.  
  
He reaches out for her, and Feng Min buries herself in his arms. She's started to shake. The tears keep welling up, even when he rests his chin on top of her head and strokes his fingers through her hair in the way she'd come to find so soothing and reassuring.  
  
Feng Min realizes that she is going to have to think about what her feelings for Herman will mean for her relationships with the other survivors. She fears that she may one day have to make a choice. One day soon. And she feels extremely selfish for wishing that the choice could be made for her. Out of her control. So that when it inevitably goes wrong, she doesn't have to blame herself.  
  
But she'd gotten herself into all of this in the first place, gotten herself tangled up with someone she shouldn't. With a _killer_ , one of the Entity's servants, with someone responsible for hurting her and so many others— forced or not.  
  
The circuit lit up all around Herman's body has dimmed considerably, and as they lie there, Feng Min feels her nerve endings coming back to life, flushing warmly beneath her skin as normal sensation slowly comes back. She closes her eyes and breathes, trying to steady her turbulent heart and clear her head and not fall apart completely. She can always do that later. She's good at it, after all, she notes with bitterness.  
  
When the numbness drains entirely out of her body, Feng Min finally allows herself to talk again, thinking she has the knot in her throat finally swallowed.  
  
"I want to know more about what you're studying here in the nightmare," she says quietly, right below his ear. "Will you show me?"  
  
Herman's gentle fingers in her hair stop. [  I've just been waiting for you to ask.  ]  
  
Feng Min understands now, with hindsight, what Herman had meant by showing her parts of the nightmare she'd never seen before. He'd been gauging her interest and perceptiveness. Knowing now what he intends — to teach her, whatever that comes to mean — she says, "Thank you," and goes quiet again, her forehead pressed to the spot right above his glowing heart.  
  
Herman pulls the thin sheets over her body. He's still holding her tight as she falls asleep.

  
  


She dreams this time. Something close to a true dream, or at least as close as the Entity would allow for.  
  
She dreams about her parents aging without her. Her friends recalling memories of her less and less before they stop talking about her altogether. Her ex-team moving onto bigger and greater things, having never really needed her help at all. She dreams about how her name — Feng Min, _Shining Lion_ , it doesn't matter — is now the pause at the end of a question, just waiting for a response. A blank line ready to be written over. Something misplaced. A memory lapsed. Maybe unrecoverable.  
  
Does anyone miss her?  
  
Is there still a _her?_

  
  


Feng Min wakes up abruptly, breathless and soaked in sweat. She tries to roll away and sit up, but finds herself caught before she calms down a little and realizes where she is.  
  
Herman's still there, clearly asleep judging by the rhythmic moving of his chest, his arms still wrapped around her. At some point, she'd kicked the sheets onto the floor, but he's so warm that she doesn't miss them. .  
  
Breathing deep to steady her racing heart, Feng Min attempts to relax, closing her eyes again. It's only then that she realizes that she's actually not sore in any way— not even in her shoulder. It's so strange that she has to dislodge Herman's arm from her body to sit up and examine her wound.  
  
She gasps.  
  
The bandage is soaked in red— there's not a spot of white left on it. The blood is new and wet, and it leaks out from under the bandage to streak down her breasts and ribs and drip onto her lap. There's so much of it that Feng Min is shocked it's not hurting. Confused, she looks down at Herman, and then cries out at what she sees. .  
  
The sheets are bloody, too. Not just where she'd been lying, but everywhere. So much blood that there's no way it had all come from her. It's flooded the mattress, flowing off the sides of the gurney into an enormous lake on the floor. Feng Min panics, not understanding what she's seeing, and then she realizes where the blood is coming from.  
  
His head. It's cut open, this perfect circular incision sawn right through the top of his skull, splitting it like a fault line. Blood runs down his face, into his eyes, his nose, his mouth. It's all down his front, all over his body. All over _her_ body, too, actually— and now, for the first time, Feng Min looks down and sees that her hands are covered in blood, and she screams—

  
  


And then wakes up again.  
  
"No!" she shrieks, having been ripped right out from the nightmare. She sits up, hysterical, and looks around wildly, the shriek dying in her throat as she realizes that she'd still been dreaming. Pale and nauseous, she lifts her hands to stare at them. No blood. Her shoulder's still wrapped securely— and it hurts like hell, enough to make tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She looks at the sheets. No blood there, too.  
  
But there's no Herman, either. She's alone.  
  
"What...?" she rasps in confusion. She slides towards the bed rail and looks around, and immediately knows that something is wrong.  
  
She's not in the same room she'd fallen asleep in. The Institute tends to be disorienting even on a good day, but Feng Min knows that the layout of the beds in this room is completely different than the one she'd just been in. She definitely hadn't fallen asleep on that bed. She slips off of the gurney on wobbling legs, sensing a dull pain in her lower body that makes the muscles in her legs go stiff. She steadies herself against the rail to look around again.  
  
"Herman?" she tries, before elevating her voice, her gaze flicking up towards one of the cameras: "Where are you?"  
  
There is no response.  
  
Feng Min finds her shorts on the end of the bed, and she slides them on as quickly as she can with her one hand. Her shirt, laying in a torn and bloodied heap on the floor, is useless. Shivering, she moves over to one of the cabinets and begins opening drawers until she notices a rusting old laundry hamper in the corner. She moves over to look through it. The clothes inside look like they've been there for decades, and probably have.  
  
She pulls some of them out. They're all pale blue inmate uniforms, like the one she'd worn before. She slips on the smallest one she can find; its long sleeves engulf her hands. She feels better once she has some clothes on again, or at least more secure, and after she's got her sneakers back on, she's anxious to find him.  
  
Feng Min leaves the room and begins walking down the hallway. Something doesn't feel right. It's in the air.  
  
Recalling the desperate intimacy she had just shared with Herman just makes the Institute seem that much emptier and lonelier now. Had he left while she was sleeping? Why? Had he placed her in another room? Shouldn't that have woken her up?  
  
The static out in the hallway is dense. Her sneakers crunch on fragments of stone and tile and dust on the floor. The noise layer is resistant, and it begins buzzing in her ears in a way that sends a chill down her spine and makes her blood run cold.  
_No._  
  
Across the hallway from her comes the thud and hum of a generator warming up, and Feng Min's heart nearly stops beating.  
  
_No,_ she thinks, but when she steps into the bathroom, she has no choice but to accept what she's seeing.  
  
Nea is there, working on a generator with her back turned to Feng Min, her hair hanging in her face as she leans over it. When Nea hears her footsteps, she stands up and turns around, before immediately stepping back in shock.  
  
A trial. The Entity's pulled her right into a trial. With Herman. Of _course_ it would. Feng Min wants to laugh. She wants to cry. She wants to scream.  
  
"F-Feng Min?!" Nea blurts out, before putting a hand to her mouth, blue eyes widening. "What the fuck are you— holy shit!" She drops the spring she'd been holding, and it bounces on the tiles out of sight behind a stall as she rushes over.  
  
"Nea," Feng Min manages. Both her face and her voice fail to hide the turmoil she feels.  
  
Unexpectedly, Nea grabs her by the shoulders and just stares at her there from an arm's length away. Her mouth moves in silent shock, before she finally asks, her voice wary and strained, "When did you get back?"  
  
Feng Min squirms beneath her grip, but she doesn't try to get away. There's something in Nea's expression that's scaring her, now that she really looks at her. "What...? What are you talking about?"  
  
"It's been, like, _weeks._ We thought you were..." Nea's voice cracks, and her fluttering brows go high. "How could you do something so _stupid?_ Where _were_ you? And what the fuck are you wearing?" Nea looks like she wants to slap her in the face, or maybe hug her, or maybe push her out of a window. Feng Min can't quite tell. But she also has no idea what the fuck Nea is talking about.  
  
"I don't... It hasn't been _weeks,_ " she says, startled. But Nea's expression is so fraught that Feng Min can't make herself believe that she is lying.  
  
"What? Yes, it has." Nea gives her an odd look and finally lets her go. She crouches to pick up the coil, her cheeks flaring pink. "I can't believe you're back. Are Jake and Claudette with you?" she asks, her tone swelling hopeful.  
  
Jake and Claudette...?  
  
"Nea," says Feng Min, struggling against a sense of steadily increasing doom, "I don't know what you're talking about." She kneels slowly and carefully next to Nea by the generator, reaching to take the coil from her; Nea surrenders it without complaint. Fixing generators is at this point second nature to Feng Min, even now.  
  
Nea finally seems to get it. She goes even paler. "You..." She reaches up and presses a hand to her temple. "You don't...?"  
  
Nea trails off, understanding all at once. Her entire demeanor darkens.  
"When you ran off, a bunch of us went after you. And Jake and Claudette haven't come back." Nea's jaw sets hard; Feng Min can hear her teeth grind together. "Dwight says it's been almost a month."  
  
A _month._  
  
"But I wasn't..." starts Feng Min helplessly. "It wasn't _that_ long. I... I just ran off, and then I was... somewhere else, and then I was here."  
  
"Yes, it _has._ Were Jake and Claudette with you?"  
  
Feng Min shakes her head, and a horrific guilt begins to settle over her as she considers what Nea is saying. If she is telling her the truth (and why wouldn't she?), then Jake and Claudette might be in trouble somewhere.  
  
Or, worse, they might _not_ be somewhere. They could be nowhere at all, and it would be her fault completely, because they'd still kept trying to help her, even at her most selfish and cowardly.  
  
_My fault..._  
  
Nea swallows and goes silent, leaning into the generator. Feng Min works on her side dully, trying not to think about anything lest she have another panic attack. She wonders if Nea can fully read the guilt on her face, and if the others figured out the details of her secret while she was gone.  
  
_It's my fault._  
  
When they finish the generator, Feng Min takes Nea by the hand, locking their fingers together to guide her to the next one. Nea's not her usual degree of chatty; she can sense that learning that Feng Min knows nothing about Jake and Claudette's whereabouts has disheartened her. So she stays silent, too, walking with Nea through patches of grass and snow. She lets the static lead her, and it does, guiding her through the labyrinthine halls right to a generator inside a waiting room.  
  
Nea's observing her deft navigation of the hospital with narrowed eyes. She does not comment on it. But it sounds like it takes her some effort to ask, "Where _have_ you been?"  
  
Feng Min reaches into the generator to get the power supply going, realigning a loose cable. "I know you won't believe me, but it's really been less than a day for me."  
  
Nea's expression flashes hurt. It's clear that she thinks she's being lied to her face. "You're right. I don't." Nevertheless, Nea joins her on the generator, and after a couple of minutes of fumbling with the wires and passing tools back and forth, she starts talking again. "You know, I went out looking for you. Like, a dozen times."  
  
Surprised, Feng Min glances at her over the generator.  
  
"I ended up at the asylum a few times. And the Nurse— our friend _Sally_..." Nea says this last part sarcastically, blue eyes going skyward. "She left me alone every time. I knew she was watching me. But she didn't actually try to kill me, or anything."  
  
Feng Min hates the idea of anyone putting themselves at risk to go out and look for her. Especially when she's not sure she would return the favor. "I... I'm sorry. I freaked out. I just panicked and ran. I didn't know what to do. I thought that..."  
  
"You thought _what?_ " demands Nea. "That whatever fucked-up shit you're doing with the shock-doc was going to come out? News-fucking-flash: it _will,_ especially now that you're back. They're halfway there already, Feng Min. I'm surprised Tapp hasn't cracked Quentin by now. Not that either one of us actually knows what the hell you're up to." The hurt is back in her expression. Nea looks like she has been betrayed, and Feng Min fully understands why.  
  
"Is Quentin okay?" she asks quietly.  
  
"He's fine." Nea reaches out and bumps Feng Min behind the elbow. "Listen to me. If you want to salvage whatever trainwreck shit you have going on right now, you're going to have to take the jump and tell everyone _first._ Because if you don't, they're going to find out another way, and I'm guessing you're not gonna like it."  
  
Feng Min laughs bitterly, shaking with it. It makes her shoulder hurt, turning the humorless giggles to wheezes that bring Herman's face to mind. "I know," she says in a faint voice. "But I have no idea where to start."  
  
"Figure it out," says Nea harshly. "Because you're running out of time."  
  
They finish the generator just as the edges of the static field approach for the first time. The Doctor is definitely in trial mode; Feng Min can feel it from the way the static immediately grabs hold of her from her grounded shoes and begins crawling up her body into her soul and her brain. It's so cold and cruelly different than the immersive pleasure it had given her so recently, and the moment it gets into her mind she feels the threat of her madness pushing her to scream.  
  
"Fuck!" her companion curses. Nea is quick to get to her feet, pale and sweating. Electricity arcs up her calves and thighs, and she dances in place like she's trying to shake it off. It's the first time Feng Min has seen her cope with the effects of the Doctor's power, and it becomes clear quickly that it really unnerves her. Nea looks like she's about to start panicking at any moment.  
  
"Go!" she urges Nea, giving her a push. Nea stumbles out into the hallway, her expression twisting between fear and agony. Feng Min swallows a scream. The static field intensifies under her feet, and the pulse of the heartbeat begins in her ears. "Go find somewhere to-"  
  
The electricity around them redoubles with a loud sizzle. Nea freezes in place and drops to her knees before a wheeled cart turned over on its side in the middle of the hallway. She starts screaming— and giving away their location.  
  
"Nea!" Feng Min says, but it's hopeless. The heartbeat is almost immediately upon them, and she can't bear to look. Not now. The timing is so _bad_. She feels afraid, again. Not of him, but of the trial. Of what has to happen. What he is obligated to do to her.  
  
The Doctor appears at the end of the hallway, ablaze and incandescent, and he does not pause at the sight of Nea or even at her.  
  
Feng Min bolts, but Nea is not keeping up with her; she'd turned instead to try to scramble through a window into an adjacent room where the Doctor wouldn't be able to reach her before she could parkour away like usual. But she'd apparently frozen for a moment too long, because, as Feng Min watches, the Doctor simply has to reach into the frame with a laugh to grab her by the back of her shirt, ripping her from it so hard her legs go swinging back against him, before he tosses her over his shoulder.  
  
"Hey!" Nea screams, frantic, kicking against him. Electricity is moving up her arms towards her head, and her eyes only get increasingly more wild and afraid. "Stop!"  
  
"Fuck," hisses Feng Min under her breath.  
  
_My fault._  
  
Knowing the static is her grim advantage, so Feng Min forces herself to action through it, even as the noise shatters like glass splinters in her head and makes her want to scream her lungs out. The decision to intervene and try to spare Nea is a sudden, reckless, guilty one, but, as with all of her bad decisions, she knows she has to see it through.  
  
She runs after the Doctor with her eyes locked on the back of his white coat and Nea's face, sprinting through a bathroom and quickly swinging over a window to cut him off at an intersection of hallways. Feng Min yells, "Over here!" to get his attention, and he turns to look at her with Nea still thrashing on his shoulder.  
  
The moment he looks at her, the static on the floor bursts and strengthens, drilling through her brain and making her cry out. The Doctor — Herman — is looking at her like he would at any other survivor. Laughing, like it's funny. Of course. She almost agrees.  
  
He's chosen to be silent again in her head. This time, she's grateful for it. Grateful, even as it feels like her heart is cracking in two.  
  
She manages to distract him long enough for Nea to kick herself free with a, "Fuck you!" She lands like a cat, crouched on all fours, then springs up and gives the Doctor a full-body shove before she runs straight down the hallway without giving Feng Min a second look.  
  
Herman stumbles back, snarling, his head snapping in Nea's direction and the dust she's literally kicking up. And then he looks back at Feng Min.  
  
"Now what?" she says softly. He's silent.  
  
Before either one of them makes a decision — flight or fight — the sound of footsteps comes down one of the halls, and Herman turns immediately away from her to pursue the lead. Feng Min doesn't linger— she runs after Nea, trying to identify her footprints in the dust. She finds her crouched in a bathroom stall over a chest, but Nea stands up when she sees her.  
  
"Don't fucking do that!" she shouts. It echoes off of all the tiles, making Feng Min wince. Nea's dark hair is stuck to her forehead and cheek by a streak of blood; Feng Min sees that she'd sustained a cut to her hand trying to get away. She thinks she's going to be accused of working with the Doctor, but what Nea actually says is, "You _have_ to get out of this trial!"  
  
"What?" Feng Min reaches for Nea's hand, trying to use the hem of her shirt to dab at the blood. There's a deep slash across her knuckles.  
  
Nea gives her a harsh look, pulling her hand to her chest defensively. "If you don't, how do we know you'll even get back to the campfire?"  
  
The question, even in Nea's resentful and stubborn tone, slips a ligature around Feng Min's heart. "Oh," she says softly. She stares down at her shoes as Nea turns back to the contents of the chest.  
  
It makes sense. Feng Min wants to get back there, too, if only to start figuring out just how badly she'd fucked up and what she'll need to do to salvage the remains.  
  
Nea soon instructs her to stick to the generators; they've got two left. The other two survivors in the trial turn out to be Ace and Kate. Out of the four of them, Feng Min knows that she is admittedly the fastest and most skilled at repairing, but she feels _wrong_ just sitting around working on a generator while she listens to the approach and fade of the heartbeat as her allies trade off injuries and turns on the hook.  
  
They'll be okay, she tries to persuade herself. Nea's fast and loose approach to trials would tend to be an asset more often than not, and Ace's high-risk-high-reward style would seem to bring good luck to anyone around him. And Kate had toughened up considerably, herself— she'd learned to channel her emotions into resilience. Between the three of them, they could buy more than enough time for Feng Min to finish the generators.  
  
She manages to get one completed just as the Entity breaks the barrier above them. With just one generator left, Feng Min knows Nea wants her to stay on task, but when she hears both Nea and Ace shouting, it's hard not to get up from her work on the unit in the treatment theater to investigate. It's while she's making her way over that the Entity rips open another hole in the atmosphere. Her heart rate picks up. This kind of scenario is never a good thing; trying to rescue teammates from sacrificial hooks already holds a high amount of danger even with just one person hanging.  
  
Feng Min is unable to reach Ace or Kate in time. She knows it by the way the sheer force of the Entity's presence shudders through her like a soundwave. The hallways have taken her around and out and back again, and the static crowding her head is starting to really hurt. It feels like her brain is about to start melting. She needs to find Nea, and she has a feeling she'll find her wherever Herman is. She staggers blindly through the halls, hands pressed to her hurting head, and tries to find the outer edge of the static radius. When she does, she hears Nea's shouting immediately.  
  
The Doctor's laughing loudly down the halls as he pursues her. He seems to enjoy Nea's particularly frantic and anxious reactions to his power; Feng Min can hear her screaming over and over, like he's shocking her just because he can.  
  
_Come on,_ she thinks as she picks a new generator close to where she can monitor the two of them. If she works quickly, and if Nea keeps it up, they can both get out of this, still.  
  
_Focus. You got this._  
  
She listens as Nea expertly baits the Doctor away from her location and back again. She can hear Nea running circuits around the treatment theater; she imagines that she could probably go all day jumping off of the observation deck. She stays on the generator even as both the heartbeats and Nea's yelling fade away.  
  
Soon, the generator starts singing in record time, even despite Feng Min's migraine and her useless left arm, and she hears the adrenaline-rush sound of the exit gates going live in the distance. She jumps up and runs into the perimeter hallway.  
  
If she can just get out of the hospital with Nea and back to the campfire, she can decide what she needs to do, and help figure out what happened to Claudette and Jake, and...  
  
She finds Nea at the exit gate already, her hand on the switch, apparently having given the Doctor the slip long enough to get it started. Feng Min breaks into a run when she spots her, thinking, _oh, thank god_. One of the red lights comes on with a loud tone.  
  
"Nea!" she says, relieved, but that doesn't last for long. She whips around to look as the Doctor's laughter floats out through the doors from the waiting room.  
  
The second bulb on the exit gate lights up as the Doctor comes out of the doors, so large before the entrance that Feng Min knows neither one of them has a chance of getting past him. Confined to the small area before the exit gate, Feng Min is forced to make another fast decision when she sees him lunge for Nea.  
  
"Run!"  
  
She shoves Nea out of the way so hard that Nea goes flying onto her ass, but Feng Min trusts that she'll recover fast— and she does, bouncing to her feet as the Doctor's swing follows through against Feng Min's side, sending her crashing into the bricks, her entire body seizing as the electricity blasts through her. She collapses when he rips it free. It's on the same side as her already injured shoulder, but somehow she _still_ feels it even under all the pain she's already in.  
  
The Doctor staggers back and makes a sound that Feng Min thinks is supposed to be a laugh. But she's never heard him sound like that before.  
  
Nea leaps and grabs for the switch again as he regains his footing. She manages to keep it down for the few seconds it takes for the final light to turn on and slide the massive door open, revealing the way out.  
  
The Doctor looks at Feng Min down on the ground, and then up at Nea, who's dashed halfway inside of the gate already, but is staring at Feng Min with great reluctance and fear. It's apparent that Nea doesn't want to leave her there.  
  
"Get up!" Nea screams at her. "What are you—"  
  
But Feng Min can't. Her whole body's shaking from the shock and from the noise flooding her brain. She shakes her head no. "Just go!" she yells.  
  
The Doctor leaves her there and swings for Nea again. Nea says something in a language Feng Min does not recognize — a curse word, by the tone of it — and just barely avoids the hit. Her eyes are helpless and apologetic, but she does as instructed. She runs. It takes her only a moment to disappear beyond the barrier. The Doctor's laughter dies off when she is past the threshold, having escaped him this time.  
  
Feng Min is still on the ground, right below the switch, her back against the bricks. She doesn't see the point in getting up and trying to run or find the hatch. Not that she _could_ ; the shock has rendered every muscle in her body numb. She moves weakly, pulling herself up straight.  
  
Whatever Herman does, she decides, she'll accept. Making that decision feels like determining where her loyalties lie.  
  
She waits for him. When he does, a silhouette pausing above her, she takes a moment to collect herself before she looks up into his face resolutely.  
  
"Do what you have to do," she says softly. She wonders where she will end up after this. The campfire is what she hopes for, but doesn't entirely believe in.  
  
Herman regards her. She keeps waiting.  
  
And then, instead of picking her up, or shocking her, or taking another swing at her, he does something entirely unexpected.  
  
Breathing slowly, he kneels before her and extends his hand.  
  
She takes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'd mean the world to me if you guys let me know what you thought of this chapter. Again, I'm so sorry it took me so long to come back! As for the next time I'll update, it'll probably be near the beginning/middle of June. See you then!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I encourage and appreciate any comments, critique, or questions. Feedback is super important to me.
> 
> I can also be found on Tumblr [here](http://raycats.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [my love is a sucker bet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16811515) by [lacrimalis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis)




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